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Just jfrienbs 


Hmerlca Is bestlneb to put into practice 
all tbe great common sense boctrlnes of 
ber own saviour, TTbomas ipalne, anb bp 
so bolng become tbe Saviour of tbe worlb. 

/lb. 1. XL 




$u$t Ifnenfcs 


a Common ^enjse ^torp 


iHar? 9iOeg CoOO 

AUTHOR OF “ VIOLINA,” “ AN AMERICAN ABELARD 
AND HELOISE,” “THE HETERODOX MARRIAGE,” ETC. 


“The people have always crucified in 
one way or another, the one who 
would save them from the conse- 
quences of their own blindness.” 

The Swastika ♦ 


1 Rew 3£orfc 

€alftin£ anb Conipanp 

1908 



! UBRARY of CONGRESS! 
i wo OoDles rteceivet- 

JUN 2 1908 

tiury 

QUtSS A XXci ( tt* 

ZOfG&Q 

§ COPY 4 


Copyright, 1908, by 
MARY IVES TODD 
{All 7'ights reserved ) 

Published April, 1908 
Printed in the United States of America. 



* • 
• • e 


'Ho tbe beloveb mentors of ms father, Ibomer be 
Grasse fives, (“lb. ©. fives”) wbo, tbougb un= 
ftnown to fame, practiced tbe fclnb of religion 
wblcb mabe stout anb Invincible tbe hearts of 
tbe great molbers of Hmerlca, Paine, umasb* 
Ington, Jefferson, jfranfilln, ^Lincoln, Emerson 
— Hbe IRellglon of Common»Sense. 



Content0 


CHAPTER ONE — “They do not kiss 

each other ” 17 

CHAPTER TWO— 

“ Of manners gentle, of affections mild. 

In wit a man, simplicity a child ’* . . 37 

CHAPTER THREE — “Obedience bears a 

yoke on her shoulders " 57 

POEM, “ Indirection ” 59 

CHAPTER FOUR — “ He was a man of 

public spirit ” 77 

CHAPTER FIVE — “ Woman represents, . . 

the principle of Divine Love ” . . .101 

CHAPTER SIX — “To do good is my re- 
ligion ” 125 

POEM, “ Friendship ” 142 

CHAPTER SEVEN— “America ... em- 
bodied her religion in four words, In God 
We Trust” 143 













































































* 





























































































Wlustrationa 


Portrait of Thomas Paine Frontispiece 

Portrait of George Washington 14 

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson 34 

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin 54 

Portrait of Andrew Jackson 74 / 

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln 98 

Burial of Thomas Paine 122 

Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson .... 140 



Chapter One 





“tlbus tbc Pennsylvania /Ibaga3ine, in tbe 
time tbat Paine ebiteb it, was a seeb=bag from 
wbicb tbis sower scattereb tbe seebs of great 
reforms ripening witb tbe progress of civili3a= 
tion. Ubrougb tbe more popular press be 
soweb also. Events selecteb bis seebs of 
Hmerican inbepenbence, of republican equality, 
freeborn from royal, ecclesiastical, anb berebi= 
tary privilege, for a swifter anb more imposing 
harvest ; but tbe wbole circle of buman ibeas 
anb principles was recogni3eb by tbis lone 
wayfaring man. Ube first to urge eitension of 
tbe principles of inbepenbence to tbe enslaveb 
negro ; tbe first to arraign monarchy, anb to 
point out tbe banger of its survival in presi= 
bency ; tbe first to propose articles of a more 
thorough nationality to tbe new=born States; 
tbe first to abvocate international arbitration ; 
tbe first toeipose tbeabsurbityanb criminality 
of buelling ; tbe first to suggest more rational 
ibeas of marriage anb bivorce ; tbe first to ab= 
vocate national anb international copyright ; 
tbe first to pleab for tbe animals ; tbe first to 
bemanb justice for woman: wbat brilliants 
woulb our mobern reformers bave contributeb 
to a coronet for tbat man’ s brow, bab be not 
presently worsbippeb tbe (Bob of bis fathers 
after tbe way tbat tbeologtans calleb beresy ! ” 

From the Life of Thomas Paine by Moncure Daniel Conway. 















3u$t 3frienbs 


CHAPTER ONE 


They do not kiss each other — only look into each other’s eyes. 
And God’s angel lays his hand on their heads. — Ruskin. 

couple had been engaged in an ardent 
conversation concerning the life of Amer- 
ica’s most advanced thinker, Thomas 
Paine, when, after a pause, the man said abruptly: 

“ I would ask very little of a wife now — very 
little — for I have been well broken on the wheel of 
life. Once I could be as impatient, as passionate 
and as dictatorial — perhaps as selfish — as any of 
my lordly sex. But not now — not now.” 

The pathos of these halting words brought tears 
to the kindly eyes of the woman, eyes which, when 
not filled with an expression of meditative melan- 
choly or passionate introspection, were as sweet 
and modest as those of a Raphael. 

No other reply seemed forthcoming and the man 
continued : 

2 


17 


18 


3u0t jfrien&s 


“You shall set your own terms — Sarah Shelley.” 

This time, two great tears rolled down the deli- 
cate, pale cheeks, as the last words dropped tenderly 
from his lips; followed by a quick glance of amaze- 
ment and mute inquiry, which seemed to ask, 
“ Why, how did you know my real name is Sarah 
Shelley? ” 

No one had called her by that name for so many 
years. It had died, she thought, along with those 
early days that were filled with roses rather than 
crosses. It was impossible for her to reply in words; 
she could only look into his eyes and feel that God’s 
angel had laid a hand on their silvered heads. 

“ Ah, you think I do not know your life,” he 
said, “ that I am only familiar with that part passed 
in Italy’s fair Florence. You mistake, for well do 
I know it — from the time you were born in a little 
out-of-the-way village in America; when the great 
West was scarcely more than a wilderness. Per- 
haps I knew you ages before. Who knows? ” 

The oddness of the man’s last observation gave 
a new turn to the woman’s thoughts and helped her 
to check the rising sobs, likewise to reply timidly, 
after a moment’s hesitation: 

“ You mean to say you know the outside of my 
life? You cannot know the inside, else you would 
not ask me to marry you.” 


3ust 3frien&6 


19 


“ You are going away/* he pursued, without 
heeding her words. “You do not even apprise 
me of the fact, or tell me where you are going. 
How I fear to lose the sweetness, the comfort, the 
genuine companionship of these latter days! Alas! 
why are you so suddenly cruel? ’’ 

The man laid his hand affectionately, clingingly, 
on the woman’s, and again his eyes sought hers as 
if he would read her very soul. 

“ But I do not know exactly where I am goftig, 
myself, and I never dreamed you would really care,” 
she faltered. 

“ I not care ! Not care if the sun, moon and 
stars suddenly drop out of my existence! Not care 
if life becomes again a stupid, monotonous tale — 
insufferably tedious! Ah, me! what is life worth 
to a person done with its practical activities and 
ambitions, if genuine, sympathetic companionship 
such as ours has been is denied him? Do you not 
recall the time we read together the announcement 
that Admiral Dewey had smashed the Spanish 
fleet at Cavite? How for the first time we gazed 
boldly into each other’s eyes and shook hands 
until our shoulders were lame for a week? There 
— don’t cry! I thought to make you laugh at 
the spread-eagleism we indulged that day, and 
ever since. For well you know we date our rise to 


20 


3uet ]frien&6 

the dignity of a world power from that great event. 
Before we were simply ‘ the States * in haughty, 
aristocratic Europe’s eyes. Now we are ‘ the Great 
Republic ’ and regarded with mingled fear and 
dread by all the Old World monarchical govern- 
ments. . . . But tell me the inside of your life, 
dear Sarah. Perhaps we can plan to go on to- 
gether, somehow. Uncle Sam has doubtless plenty 
more things to smash, and who will rejoice with me 
over fresh victories when you are gone? ” 

“ Not to-day, please. I am very tired — I must 
go. 

Mrs. Wells rose as she spoke, and offering her 
hand in token of farewell, was about to take her 
way still farther up the cross-marked hill which she 
had so often climbed — alone. 

“No, no. I protest! You shall not climb this 
steep Via Crucia unassisted — nor any other — 
when I am with you. Here, take my arm. To- 
gether we shall seem mounting heavenward. Pity 
there are so few steps yet to climb ! ’’ he continued 
when they had proceeded quite some distance. “ I 
should have caught up with you before, where the 
green fence begins. That fence now shows progress 
— that religious people no longer insist on making 

the most of every cross as they come to it. But here 
» »» 

we are! 


21 


3u0t 3frienb0 

This he said as a cab drew up, the driver having 
received a secret signal while Mrs. Wells was glanc- 
ing dubiously toward a high, bright green, wooden 
fence to which her companion had just referred. In 
another instant, and before she could utter a word 
of amazement at his high-handed proceeding, she 
was literally bundled into the carriage where her 
companion seated himself by her side, and they were 
quickly driven in an opposite direction. 

The “ Hill of Crosses,” one of the most ancient 
Via Crucia known to the Catholic world, though 
still a steep ascent and probably in the dim past but a 
mere picturesque, hilly path which devotees climbed 
on their knees, stopping to pray as each rude wooden 
cross was reached — appeared to Mrs. Wells a per- 
fectly modeled Italian “ via,” that resembled a very 
wide staircase with steps at regular intervals. On 
one side, over a rather high concrete wall, she 
caught a glimpse now and then, of a luxuriant gar- 
den, flushed with spring-time roses. On the other 
side rose the “ Hill of Crosses,” overtopped by tall, 
brooding, sombre cypresses, from which descended 
an olive grove and a sinuous road that led from 
the Porta San Miniato toward the heart of Flor- 
ence. 

Mrs. Wells reminded her companion that it was 
along this very road on the evening of a Good 


22 


3u0t ffrienfcs 

Friday, once upon a time, that Giovanni Gualberto 
hurried to his home on the outskirts of Florence, his 
heart aflame with rage because his mother wept and 
refused to be comforted, and his father brooded with 
a heart as black and stormy as his own. 

He was accompanied by some stern companions 
who, like himself, were pledged to vengeance — to 
slay the assassin of his brother; and when they had 
mounted about half way up the hill, they came sud- 
denly face to face with the very man whose life they 
had vowed to take at the first opportunity. He was 
alone and unarmed; and at sight of Gualberto’s 
terrible countenance, the miserable wretch, seeing 
no way of escape, extended his arms in the form of 
a cross and sank upon his knees in an attitude of 
helpless pleading. 

For quite some time the high-strung youth of 
noble lineage stood motionless, regarding his in- 
tended victim, his sword raised to strike the fatal 
blow, a fierce conflict raging in his breast. His 
word was pledged, his honor was at stake ; yet there 
before him knelt a suppliant looking, ah! so like a 
cross in the fitful moonlight, while over against him 
rose the Hill of Crosses, each appearing to plead 
with the culprit for mercy, for forgiveness. And 
beside, was it not on this very day that Christ had 
hung on the Cross, and, though suffering the frenzied 


3u0t jfriente 23 

agony of the crucified had yet forgiven, nay, had 
prayed for, his enemies? 

So the conflict ended; and after a hurried prayer 
for divine aid, Gualberto made the sign of the 
Cross, flung down his sword, dismounted from his 
horse, and clasping the kneeling wretch in his arms, 
told him he forgave him. Then they parted; and 
while the assassin pursued his way to Florence, 
Gualberto dismissed his companions, and torn with 
mingled grief and joy, “ with every pulse throbbing 
with a sudden revulsion of feeling,” he remounted 
and rode on to the Church of San Miniato at the 
top of the hill. 

Ah, who that has ever visited fair Florence but 
tenderly recalls San Miniato in Monte, towering on 
its lofty eminence above the city and visible along 
the Lung ’Arno, from the Ponto alle Grazie to the 
Ponto alia Carraja! Who that has stood on the 
marble steps of this ancient church can forget the 
enchanting picture of the Valley of the Arno, or 
the old dismantled fortress defended by Michelan- 
gelo against the Medici, or the long avenue of 
cypresses and the declivities robed in vineyards and 
olive-grounds between the gate and the lofty heights 
above ! 

Tender? Ah, yes! tender indeed the memories 
that cluster about this ancient structure founded in 


24 


3u0t 3frient>0 

honor of a Florentine martyr who was executed on 
its site in the year 254, and thus ended a life of 
suffering for daring to change his religious beliefs. 
By birth an Armenian Prince, he accepted service 
in the Army of Rome where he was denounced as 
a Christian and taken before the Emperor Decius, 
who was encamped at the time on a hill outside the 
gates of Florence. 

This august Roman potentate promptly ordered 
him thrown to the beasts in the amphitheatre, where, 
according to Christian tradition, a panther was let 
loose upon him, but, when he called upon Jesus 
to save him his life was miraculously spared. Yet 
his suffering did not end there; for he was cast into 
a boiling cauldron, afterward suspended from a 
gallows, stoned and shot with javelins; but in his 
agony an angel descended to comfort him, and 
clothed him in a garment of light. Finally he was 
beheaded. Religion in the past has been a hard 
taskmaster, but it has developed strength of char- 
acter. 

In this beautiful church, built to commemorate 
the last tragic and fatal scene in the life of this Flor- 
entine martyr, Gualberto soon found himself, and 
quickly strode to the Crucifix over the altar. Here 
he knelt ; and as he fervently prayed that divine for- 
giveness be granted him for the crime he had been 


25 


3uet ffrienbe 

on the point of committing, it seemed to his excited 
imagination that the Figure bowed its head in 
gracious assent. “ From that moment, the world 
and all its vanities became hateful to him. He felt 
like one who had been saved on the edge of a preci- 
pice.” Gualberto’s next move was to join the Bene- 
dictine Order. 

The Benedictine Order of Monks is a very old 
one founded by St. Benedict who was born at 
Nursia, in the Dukedom of Spoleto, in Italy, 480 
A. D. It appears he was born a recluse, for we 
read that at fourteen years of age he retired to a 
desert place forty miles distant from Subiaca, where 
he took up his residence in a cave, and so success- 
fully did he remain concealed for a time that his 
abode was known only to St. Romanus who per- 
formed the friendly office of descending daily by a 
rope into the cave, to carry to its occupant the 
necessities of earthly life. Subsequently, when the 
austere life of St. Benedict had become known to 
the monks of a neighboring monastery, they chose 
him for their abbot; but friction having developed 
over this arrangement, he returned to his solitude, to 
be followed eventually by so many persons that he 
was enabled to rear a dozen monasteries. When 
near fifty years of age, St. Benedict retired to Monte 
Cassino, where idolatry still prevailed, and at once 


26 


3u0t ffrien&s 

set about converting the people to what he con- 
sidered the “ true faith.” Being successful in this, 
he broke the statue of Apollo, overthrew the altar 
and instituted the order of his name, converting the 
Greek temples into a monastery. Thus doth one 
religion supplant another! 

It remained for Benedictine, a follower of St. 
Benedict, to make the three vows — perfect chastity, 
absolute poverty, and implicit obedience in all re- 
spects to superiors — irrevocable. Hitherto, self- 
rule and independence had been permitted the monks 
more or less; henceforth, they were to live out their 
days in a monastery and be in servile subjection to 
the authority of their abbot. Ah, it has been so 
easy for the religions of the past to develop both 
tyranny and fanaticism! 

All these memories from her readings crov/ded 
one upon the other as they rushed through Mrs. 
Wells’ mind; and she realized that much the same 
feeling which had caused Gualberto to turn his back 
on the world and retire to a monastery had pos- 
sessed her bosom also, when her son was suddenly 
stricken from her side, and she had found herself 
alone in a strange land. Like him, also, she sought 
in what are termed “ sacred places,” the consola- 
tion which she believed the world could not afford; 
though, as she had been reared a Protestant, she 


3uet jfrienfcs 27 

did not permanently take up her abode in any relig- 
ious place of refuge, nor assume its vows. 

Later, when the war between the United States 
and Spain broke out she was glad she had not com- 
mitted herself to a life of seclusion, for it would have 
been impossible for her to have rushed every morn- 
ing, Sunday included, to read the latest telegrams 
and the morning papers, as soon as the dusting was 
done in the great Vieusseux Library. 

And very early, promptly, deftly, were the En- 
glish reading-rooms put into exquisite order in this 
celebrated library founded in 1820 by Giampietro 
Vieusseux, and declared by the well-informed to be 
“ the largest and most reliable circulating library in 
Europe.” Its founder was one of those geniuses 
“ who gave a great impulse to modern Italian Liter- 
ature,” for he established not only a great library 
in a grand old palace, but also three excellent peri- 
odicals, one of them called “ L ’Autologia,” which 
received contributions from Italy’s keenest and best 
pens but was finally suppressed by the Tuscan 
government on account of two articles entitled 
“ Peter of Russia,” and ” Pausanias.” The others 
kept safer ground, however, one being devoted to 
the encouragement of agriculture, the other to 
learned matters; and so universally admired, be- 
loved and influential, became this gentleman of 


28 


3uet jfrienbs 

French extraction, that he was called “ the second 
Grand Duke of Florence.” His death was the oc- 
casion of rare tributes of praise, and his body was 
followed to its final resting place by the most illus- 
trious persons of Florence. 

Although this library was in no sense a club where 
men and women could meet, become acquainted and 
exchange ideas and aspirations with one another, it 
nevertheless afforded sometimes a sort of mystical — 
or should one say psychological — means of acquaint- 
anceship, which occasionally ripened into practical 
companionship or sympathetic friendship, rarely into 
love and marriage, for the regular habitues were 
mostly weatherbeaten-looking specimens of human- 
ity, long since anchored to their mates. Exceptions 
there were, however, of homeless waifs of both sexes, 
who, by a multitude of secret signs, had come to 
know each other well and to feel a deep and ideal 
sympathy for the intuitively guessed loneliness which 
pervaded their stranded fellow beings. 

Possibly, as interesting a couple of tempest-tossed, 
heart-lonely individuals as any who sought informa- 
tion and distraction at the Reading-Rooms, were 
Mrs. Wells and Mr. Smith. For some months they 
had met frequently among other busy readers at the 
tables, without taking any special interest in each 
other beyond what was natural when they became 


3 ust 3frienb0 


29 


aware that each was an American imbued with a 
common love for Thomas Paine, and that each was 
specially interested in the press comments upon the 
war then in progress between “ The States ” and 
the dignified, well-bred Old-World power, Spain. 

There was nothing specially captivating about 
the physical make-up of either of these individuals, 
any more than there was distinction in their names 
— Mr. Smith — Mrs. Wells. Probably at twenty- 
five Mr. Smith had presented to the world a splen- 
did physique, when he must have stood six feet one 
in his stockings, at that age he was doubtless as 
straight as a pine and mettlesome as a racer; but his 
broad-shouldered form was now slightly stooping 
and suggested frailness rather than strength. The 
once keen, bright, handsome, deep-set grey eyes 
had already become dim and somewhat mild in their 
glance, and they were usually covered by glasses. 
Metamorphosis had likewise transformed the rich, 
dark locks ; it had thinned their number and changed 
the color from black to iron-grey. But the fine 
square, regularly-proportioned forehead still sug- 
gested the magnanimity of the lion, and the manner 
in which he wore his moustache, which grew straight 
along to the corners of his mouth, the ends turned 
upward in a sharp curve, betokened a natural rapid- 
ity of thought and action. He was always dressed 


30 


Juat ]frient>0 

well, though occasionally his clothes presented the 
appearance of having been worn for some time, 
which was probably due to the fact that he always 
selected the most durable material that could be 
found. 

A divine evolutionary necessity probably causes 
young people to fall in love with their opposites in 
characteristics rather than to make matches of “ like 
to like.” On the other hand, middle-aged or elderly 
people, in latter days especially, are more apt to 
choose for companions those in accord with them- 
selves; the time being past in which it is possible to 
make radical changes in character or conduct. 

This was particularly the case with the Americans 
whose psychological acquaintance ripened so rapidly 
into practical friendship amid the environment of the 
old Vieusseux Library, for both were apparently as 
nearly alike in the essential features of their being, 
and in the ripeness of their individuality, as it is 
possible for a man and a woman to become, not- 
withstanding the fact that Mrs. Wells looked much 
the more youthful, partly because of greater atten- 
tion to personal appearance, and partly because of 
her erect carriage. She was not naturally more 
fastidious than Mr. Smith, but, as her boy liked his 
mama to look young and pretty, she had conformed 
to his wishes until the habit had become a second 


3u6t 3frieni>$ 


31 


nature; though it was not difficult for her to retain 
her youthful figure since Nature had been kind 
enough to leave unchanged the chaste outline of 
bust and waist. 

It is true their eyes, though alike in being set 
straight and well apart, were different in color and 
beauty and depth of setting; hers having the less 
depth and keenness of expression; but, on the other 
hand, they were larger, with a more beautifully 
colored iris, and shaded by long, curling lashes, 
which formed her loveliest physical attribute. Their 
other features were also alike in being moulded after 
a generous fashion, though dissimilar in minor points ;• 
and the expression of their countenances were so 
strikingly benignant that seeing them together one 
would mentally exclaim, “ Ah, a well-matched* 
harmonious couple, evidently in secure possession of 
that sweetest of marital secrets, a good under- 
standing.” 






































4 


»- i 




V 




























*» 


« 



I 










V 





t 








Chapter Cwo 



\ 


\ 


V 




/ 




















TObomas Paine breameb tbe most glorious 
bream of buman freeborn tbat ever encbanteb 
tbe minb of man ; fairer anb sweeter tban lag 
uitber tbe broken marbles of Greece ; brighter 
anb better tban was burieb with tbe beab eagles 
of Iftome. Me know not wbat gave birtb to tbis 
bream of bis soul. Ube atmosphere of bis 
earls life bas fabeb from tbe skg. Ube keg to 
bis south is lost. Ibe bab liveb inostls in tbe 
realm of tbougbt. ibow tbe bope of freeborn 
for all ntanktnb gatneb entrance to bis minb 
no one can tell ; wbat rivers feb it, wbat suns 
ttourisbeb it, wbat stars lookeb bown upon it 
bs nigbt can never be learneb. tbe was a genius 
of solitube. Ibis minb nurseb sustenance from 
tbe beart of tbe universe. fEbe wrongs be reab 
of mabe bun long for justice ; tbe falseboobs 
be bearb turneb bis beart to truth, tbe oppres* 
sion about bim kinbleb liberts witbin bint. Pis 
great bream for mankinb came from bis love of 
man. 


Marilla M. Ricker. 



CHAPTER TWO 


Of manners gentle, of affections mild ! 
In wit a man, simplicity a child. — P ope. 


H H! let me take charge of your dearly be- 
loved volume of Thomas Paine since you 
will not leave it in the cab,” said Mr. 
Smith, as he assisted Mrs. Wells to alight near the 
gate leading to the San Miniato Campo Santo. 
He chose to stop at this point because the church 
itself was no longer used as a place of worship, 
being a favorite shrine for sightseers, and he well 
knew that both the church and the premises had 
become a fashionable place of interment. 

“You see,” he continued with playful raillery, 
“ I spoke truly when I said I knew you well. It is 
for that reason we stop here for a little quiet medita- 
tion before we find our way back to the busy thor- 
oughfares of Florence. You dearly love a grave- 
yard, Sarah, and doubtless you would not rest well 
to-night were you deprived of your usual recreation.” 

“ Thank you for the pleasure you are giving me,” 
Mrs. Wells replied, “ but it is, I fear, at the expense 
of your own. I think I have never met you here.” 

37 


38 


3uet tfrienbs 

“No, not likely. I was here but once — and fled 
quickly when my eye fell on a certain monument. 
I will tell you about it some time.” 

“ Let us return without delay if the place has 
disagreeable associations for you. Come! ” 

“ No, I shall not mind the haunting memories of 
the past which it calls up, with you beside me. Be- 
sides the gate is open, and the keeper will think it 
strange if we do not enter.” 

Feeling intuitively that the place somehow de- 
pressed him, she slipped her arm within his and said 
cheerfully : 

“We will sit for a moment on the marble steps 
of the church and watch the sun sink into his splendid 
tomb. You see, he is making gorgeous preparations 
for his departure.” 

They seated themselves and looked for a time in 
perfect silence on the grand canvas unrolled before 
them, which only the finger of the greatest of artists. 
Nature, can paint. It is true, great rugged, artistic 
Florentines had done their part in aiding the Unseen 
Artist to present a scene which, once viewed by the 
sympathetic human eye, can never be forgotten ; had 
indeed cunningly imitated Nature in the solidity, the 
magnificence, the picturesqueness, nay, even the ex- 
quisite mystical charm, of their handiwork. 

Presently Mrs. Wells said: “ It is singular that as 


3u$t 3frient>$ 


39 


many times as I have sat here or on yonder steps, I 
have never been able to do so without George 
Eliot’s description of this view coming vividly to 
mind. Do you recall it? It is in Romola.” 

“ I do not. Some time has elapsed since I read 
the book; it was upon my arrival in Florence. I 
recall, however, that it deals in a masterly way with 
Florentine life during the turbulent times preceding 
the martyrdom of Savonarola. What has she to 
say about this poetic picture? ” 

“ She imagines that the spirit of a Florentine citi- 
zen, whose eyes were closed in the time of Colum- 
bus, has been permitted to return to the famous hill 
of San Miniato, and then proceeds to portray how 
familiar the scene appears, she says: 

It is not only the mountains and the westward- 
bending river that he recognizes; not only the dark 
sides of Mount Morello opposite him, and the long 
valley of the Arno that seems to stretch its grey, 
low-tufted luxuriance to the far-off ridges of Carrara ; 
and the steep height of Fiesole, with its crown of 
monastic walls and cypresses; and all the green and 
grey slopes sprinkled with villas which he can name 
as he looks at them. He sees other familiar objects 
much closer to his daily walks. For, though he 
misses the seventy or more towers that once sur- 
rounded the walls and encircled the city as with a 


40 


Suet jfrienl>0 

regal diadem, his eyes will not dwell on that blank; 
they are drawn irresistibly to the unique tower, 
springing, like a tall flower-stem towards the sun, 
from the square turretted mass of the Old Palace in 
the very heart of the city — the tower that looks none 
the worse for the four centuries that have passed 
since he used to walk under it. The great dome, 
too, greatest in the world, which, in his early boy- 
hood had been only a daring thought in the mind of 
a small, quick-eyed man — there it raises its large 
curves still, eclipsing the hills. And the well-known 
bell-tower — Giotto’s, with its distant hint of rich 
color, and the graceful spired Badia, and the rest — 

he looked at them all from the shoulder of his 
» »» 

nurse. 

“ That is good — but what a memory you must 
have! I remember comparatively little of what I 
read nowadays. I can recall much which occurred 
years ago better to-day than things of yesterday. 
Life is a strange business, is it not? ” 

“ Truly so,” returned Mrs. Wells, her eyes filling 
as his last words, freighted with a touching pathos, 
reached her ear. “ Ah, but this won’t do,” she re- 
sumed. “ Two elderly people like you and me 
should be retreating before these cold steps get in 
their work and the air resumes its spring chilliness.” 

She rose as she finished speaking, and her compan- 


3uet 3frient>6 41 

ion did likewise. Before, however, they had turned 
to depart, she said, with evident hesitation: 

“ Would you mind going to see just one tomb- 
stone that has a peculiar interest for me? It is not 
in the church but at the back, and it is one of late 
date.” 

“ Certainly not. It would give me pleasure.” 

“ This way; please follow me. Probably you are 
aware that I am having a monument prepared here 
to be erected in America to the memory of my son. 
It is nearly finished. But I wish you to see the one 
which has suggested some ideas for it. I would like 
your opinion. True, it is too late to make much 
change, but the cross might be left off if we could 
think of something better to substitute.” 

" That depends — on what sort of a boy he was, 
— how he looked at life — what he accomplished 
and so on.” 

“ His life was a strenuous one, I can assure j'ou. 
He won some victories that cost him so dear they 
doubtless helped cut short his existence, while he 
was but a beautiful youth. Ah, here is the monu- 
ment, a graceful one, is it not? ” 

Mrs. Wells pointed as she spoke to a finely pro- 
portioned, well-arranged and exquisitely finished 
marble symbol reared in a “ plat,” adorned with 
rare roses and luxuriant ivy. The pedestal was of 


42 


3u0t 3fcien£>0 

excellent workmanship and depicted scenes in the 
life of a strenuous young hero. 

Resting on the artistic, substantial pedestal was 
a well-poised, graceful figure, with drapery arranged 
about it as only the Greeks and Italians can do 
naturally. The half-curling locks, somewhat long, 
abundant and flowing, enhanced the poetic beauty 
of the face. One delicate hand clung to an anchor 
lodged securely in the pedestal just behind the figure ; 
the other, together with the arm, encircled a cross 
on the opposite side of the anchor. Over the fore- 
head shone a star, while the countenance was lifted 
heavenward in submissive yet expectant repose. 

“ Yes, graceful and well done, but conventional,” 
declared Mr. Smith. “ The proper thing for women 
and monks and nuns, who look on the cross as the 
true symbol of life; but men ought to have a differ- 
ent ideal. They know very well that life means 
strenuous struggle and the survival of the fittest; 
that original sin is nothing more nor less than our 
brute inheritance which has to be coped with and 
mastered before we can mount triumphantly Heaven- 
ward. Hell is anywhere that man finds himself 
beast-ridden. I know what I am talking about. So 
would you if you had served the apprenticeship 
which has been my fate.” 

“ You must tell me about it all, soon,” she said 


3uet ]frient >0 


43 


sympathetically, as she took his arm and signified 
by pointing ominously to the sky, that they must go. 

In a few moments they had regained their carriage 
and were being driven rapidly along the road lead- 
ing into the Piazzale Michelangelo, which they fol- 
lowed until the front part of the terrace had been 
reached, when Mr. Smith turned abruptly to his 
companion, and said: 

“ Can you not spare a few moments to enjoy with 
me this very real view of Florence and its environs? 
I grant that it has not the mystical beauty of the San 
Miniato view, but has it not some features of inter- 
est which the other lacks? ” 

Mr. Smith spoke rather deprecatingly — as Mrs. 
Wells gladly permitted him to lift her from the car- 
riage — since he laid no claim to an eye for artistic 
effect ; and his main reason for preferring this view to 
the San Miniato was because from the front of the 
upper terrace, or even from the one below, of this 
Piazzale, one could overlook such a mass of high, 
solid-walled, fireproof houses, which, like the grand 
heights about the city, seemed to set time at naught, 
affording meanwhile not only stout protection from 
the elements and from the destructive passions of 
man aflame with anger or malice or greed, but 
palatial homes for her people from generation to gen- 
eration. 


44 


3u6t ]fnent )0 


Mrs. Wells, who was not really observing any- 
thing in particular, but rather taking in with eager, 
entranced eye the whole gorgeous scene of “ la bella 
Firenze,” divided by the gleaming Arno yet united 
by her picturesque bridges in her nest of villa-crowned 
hills and reposeful mountains, all which were made 
transcendently beautiful in the glory of a sinking sun 
in a glorious sky — could only murmur : 

“ How very, very beautiful it all is! You are 
right. We certainly have the finest possible view of 
Florence from this point,” said Mrs. Wells with 
characteristic enthusiasm. 

“ And to think,” Mr. Smith urged, as they re- 
seated themselves in the carriage, 44 that there is not 
a wooden shingle on all that mass of houses to catch 
fire; not a board in all their solid, erect walls to give 
or crumble; that her people live in palaces all the 
time ! ” 

“ But I suppose America could build a good-sized 
city while these Italians are compiling one of their 
tall, stout- walled, picturesque buildings.” 

“ Yes, and burn it down again! Good heavens! 
it makes my blood boil to think in what an insane, 
criminal, murderous fashion America houses her 
people! Why, do you know that the maximum de- 
struction by fire in all Europe is less than one-sixth 
that of our own fool country? ” 


3ust ffrienbs 45 

Without waiting for a reply, Mr. Smith hurried 
on: 

“I am told that though we build something like 
five million dollars* worth of new buildings a year, 
our fire losses exceed that sum — when cost of fire 
departments and insurance is included.” 

“ But the people must get back something by way 
of insurance.” 

“ Less than a fifth of what her fire losses cost, and 
that done with much friction and often litigation. 
Those who have given the matter attention assert 
that America could even house her very poor in fire- 
proof buildings at an ultimate economy if she really 
cared to do so or gave the matter sufficient attention 
and made proper laws. Think what artistic homes 
we might create year by year if we built them sub- 
stantial and fireproof at the start. We could pro- 
ceed at our leisure to decorate them inside and out. 
I would have some niches left in the stout, unburn- 
able walls of my house for the busts or statues of the 
heroes I admire, and place them there as I was able 
to have them made.” 

“ I suppose a statue or a bust of Lorenzo Medici, 
‘ The Magnificent,’ for instance, would occupy one 
recess, since you admire him so much,” replied Mrs. 
Wells, laughing softly at the idea. 

“Most assuredly! But how is it now? Why, 


46 


3u6t jrient >0 

at any hour of the day or night you may be notified 
that all your treasured possessions, as well as your 
home, has gone up in smoke. You return to find a 
blackened ruin ! ” 

Mr. Smith spoke with a tinge of bitterness, hav- 
ing suffered not a little from America’s superficial 
mode of building. 

“ True, but America is young, and her heritage 
was a huge wilderness, scarcely touched by the 
hand of man. Why, when a couple of Italy’s ad- 
venturous sons sailed across the ocean one after the 
other, and laid eyes upon her virgin soil, Florence 
was already housed in her great fortress palaces as 
you see her to-day; while her achievements in art 
were the wonder and admiration of the world. 
Also, at this time, her Galileo was making discover- 
ies which not only unsettled everything on this little 
ball of an earth, but disclosed to man a universe of 
new worlds. Ah, this same beautiful Florence has 
been a mighty mother of genius and intrepid daring. 
I love her well.” 

“ Then why do you turn your back on her? 
Why not permanently remain, as so many do who 
speak our tongue, and who, if not great in some 
way, can yet enter with delight into the spirit of the 
works of those who were — like my humble self, for 
instance.” 


3ust jfrienba 


47 


“ ’Tis a long story, which I will tell you when 
you can listen,” the woman replied, with a sad, 
dreamy air. For it was hard for her to turn her back 
on the beautiful city wherein had dwelt and wrought 
such mighty spirits of the past, and under whose 
spell she herself was beginning to see and realize 
somewhat of the infinite splendor and wonder and 
mystery of God’s universe. 

“ Tell me to-morrow! ” Mr. Smith urged, his 
old impetuous spirit rising as he spoke. 

“Not to-morrow, I think, since I have made ar- 
rangements to visit Santa Croce by early morning 
light.” 

“ With a company of sightseers? ” 

“ No, simply with an Italian woman and her 
husband. Fie is a guide who can give me some 
added information concerning the art treasures which 
have become very dear to me during my stay 
here.” 

“ May I not go, too,” he pleaded pathetically, as 
he held her hand in his. “ Remember, I may not be 
able to prevail on you to remain in Florence.” 

There was no other carriage in sight, and they 
were being driven very slowly, according to Mr. 
Smith’s order, around the magnificently terraced hill 
extending from the Piazzale Michelangelo to the 
Porta San Niccolo. 


4S Juet Jfrienbs 

“ Certainly, I should be pleased to have your 
company.” Mrs. Wells beamed prettily on her 
companion as she spoke, but the next instant with- 
drew her hand from his as she saw a gay party 
advancing rapidly toward them. 

“ They are evidently afraid the sun will get down 
before they can get up to see what he is about,” said 
Mr. Smith with an amused air. “ They do well 
to hasten, for sometimes his gorgeous effects swiftly 
terminate, leaving but a dull, leaden sky and a dim 
landscape in place of inconceivable splendor.” 

“ Yes, the Great Artist works with such ease and 
swiftness. He can afford to make lightning changes. 
It is man who, having done a great scene with infin- 
ite labor and pains, must needs preserve it with not 
less care, his masterpieces being so few and far 
between.” 

“ Well, I can make the same plea for man that 
you made for America a few moments ago. He is 
young, or at least, did not show up till late. Nature 
had got her hand well trained and was a swift and 
sure artist before he entered upon his apprenticeship 
here. Naturally, he is at present niggardly and 
monopolistic; but when he can produce great effects 
with comparative ease, then he will care as little for 
them as Nature appears to do. In fact he will imi- 
tate Infinity in being both productive and generous.” 


3u$t ffrtenbs 


49 


“ Really! ” exclaimed Mrs. Wells, as she turned 
her amused glance full on her companion. “ You 
think that when man can multiply, say loaves and 
fishes, with the same ease with which Christ is de- 
clared to have done, that he will distribute as freely? 
How about our own countrymen, those who can 
and do multiply freely, not only the things we eat, 
but a multitude of other things essential to human 
needs? ” 

“ Oh, I will have to admit America has as yet 
developed but few business men with Christ’s power 
for equitable distribution of the necessities of life. 
But that will come in time, for America has been 
dowered with an abundance of common-sense. Ah, 
I perceive we have arrived at your pensione.” 

Mr. Smith spoke these words sadly and reluct- 
antly as he proceeded to alight, the carriage having 
stopped. When he had lifted her out and they 
stood a moment together before parting, he said, 
holding her hand with a firm grip : 

“ Would you mind dismissing the guide and his 
wife and permit me to serve you in that capacity 
to-morrow? I fear the time is short when I shall 
have the privilege of being with you.” 

“ And you wish to monopolize what there is of 
it? ” she said with a little significant and extra pres- 
sure of the hand and a charming, quizzical smile. 
4 


50 


%nei friends 


For some reason his words of a few hours before 
came vividly to her mind — and caused a smile now. 
They were these: “I would ask very little of a 
wife now — very little — for I have been well broken 
on the wheel of life.” 

Nevertheless she answered pleasantly, “ Cer- 
tainly, we will dispense with their services. We 
must be careful, however, not to repeat our visits too 
often with no third party present. *Tis easy to set 
people talking.” 

“No one could connect any scandal with your 
open, frank face and straightforward manner, I am 
sure. There is nothing to fear.” 

“ How about Queen Victoria, who, whether as 
maid, wife, mother, queen or empress, has played 
her part in life with the utmost propriety? ” 

“ Well, it being a foregone conclusion that people 
will gossip anyhow, let us do what we think is right 
and proper, and not bother ourselves about the small 
talk of small people. There can be no harm in two 
grey-haired friends spending occasionally a few 
hours together in places made sacred by human 
genius.” 

“ I will do as you wish,” she replied, soothingly, 
withdrawing her hand. Then, as she turned to go up 
the stairs leading to her pensione, she added, “ You 
will doubtless find me to-morrow morning at six 


5t 


3uet 3frienb6 

o’clock seated among the early worshippers at Santa 
Croce; and, if the sun happens to be shining, you 
will have to give a sharp twitch to my sleeve to re- 
call me. For always when he beams into that grand 
scene in the early morning, I am intoxicated with the 
transfiguration which takes place, and the strange, 
beautiful thoughts which enthrall my whole being.” 







Chapter Cbree 





flDg frienbs were falling as fast as tbe guil* 
lotine cou [5 cut tbeir beabs off, anb as IF ei= 
pecteb, even? bag, tbe same fate, H resolpeb to 
begin mg worFi. IF appeareb to mgself to be on 
mg beatb=beb, for beatb was on everg sibe of 
me, anb IF bab no time to lose. TEbts accounts 
for mg writing at tbe time IF bib, anb so niceFg 
bib tbe time anb intention meet, tbat IF bab not 
finisbeb tbe first part of tbe work more tban 
sir bours before IF was arresteb anb taFien to 
prison. Zhc people of jFrance were running 
beablong into atbeism, anb f bab tbe worFi 
translateb in tbeir own language, to stop tbem 
in tbat career, anb fix tbem to tbe first article 
of everg man’s creeb, wbo bas ang creeb at 
all— “ IF believe in (Bob.” 

Thomas Paine in a letter to Samuel Adams. 
















* 



















































* 





































CHAPTER THREE 

Obedience bears a yoke on her shoulders, and lays her hand on a 
book. 


R. Smith experienced some difficulty in 
X Has extricating himself from the enchantment 
of sleep at the time Mrs. Wells had 
named the evening before, for he had accustomed 
himself to the habits of the people with whom he 
associated, and had come to regard the early morn- 
ing hours as more adapted to slumber than to activ- 
ity. This morning, however, he remade his ac- 
quaintance with Florence baptised by the dew of 
early morning and glorified by the fresh, vigorous and 
gorgeous beams of the rising sun; her healthy, stout- 
hearted contadini everywhere, picturesque, alert, 
cheerful after their early frugal meal, and busy mak- 
ing ready to display and dispose of the fruits of their 
hard-won toil. Occasionally persons belonging to 
other classes of society were to be seen, sometimes 
with book in hand or hurrying along as if intent on 
catching a train while exquisite little birds with melo- 
dious throats were mingling their voices with the in- 
creasing hum of industry. 

57 


58 


3u6t 3 frient >0 

As Mr. Smith hurried along and felt the thrill of 
all this healthy, beautiful life and activity coursing 
through his veins, he fell to wondering if life did not, 
after all, offer her freshest, sanest, healthiest draught 
to the people frequently dubbed “ common.” He 
turned the query over and over in his mind, at first 
thinking that the money-making class had the best 
of it, notwithstanding the web of taxation and im- 
pecuniosity in which they were always cunningly en- 
tangled, and then again that the money-manipulating 
class was the one to be envied, for its almost unlim- 
ited power to squeeze the producers. But he reached 
his destination without making any headway toward 
a solution, feeling only that, if obliged to choose, the 
temptation would be great to range himself with the 
squeezers rather than with the squeezed. 

The next moment, however, all these ugly and 
apparently vain questionings had taken their flight, 
for he found himself within the sacred precincts of 
Santa Croce; and, being strangely awed by the 
splendor and sublimity of the “rose burst ” of the 
sun through the grand old windows, he involuntarily 
knelt for a moment as humbly as the most devout 
Catholic could have done. Then he rose and went 
forward to where a certain trim-looking woman sat 
quite by herself, at some distance from various groups 
of early worshippers well scattered in the fine old 


3uet jfrien&s 


59 


cathedral. She was not kneeling as many were doing 
here and there, but sitting quite still, her eyes full of 
the glory of the scene and her mind occupied at that 
moment in recalling the lines of Richard Realf’s 
“ Indirection: ” 

Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is 
fairer ; 

Rare is the rose-burst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer ; 
Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is 
sweeter ; 

And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning outmastered the 
metre. 

Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the growing ; 

Never a river that flows, but a majesty scepters the flowing; 

Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he did unfold 
him; 

Nor ever a prophet foretold, but a mightier than he hath foretold 
him. 

Back of the canvas that throbs, the painter is hinted and hidden ; 
Into the statue that breathes, the soul of the sculptor is bidden ; 
Under the joy that is felt, lie the infinite issues of feeling; 

Crowning the glory revealed, is the glory that crowns the revealing. 

Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled is greater ; 
Vast the beheld and created, but vaster the inward creator ; 

Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the 
giving ; 

Back of the hand that receives, thrill the sensitive nerves of receiving. 

Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing ; 

The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing ; 
Up from the pits where they shiver, and up from the heights where 
they shine, 

Twin voices and shadows swim starward and the essence of life is 
divine. 


60 


3uet jfrienbs 

She had just reached the last line when he gave 
her sleeve the twitch as previously instructed, and 
immediately on perceiving who it was that had dis- 
turbed her, she held out her hand, saying without 
other greeting and with a deep sigh : 

“ Ah, the essence of life is divine, is it not? 
Truly, you are sure of it at this moment. Sit down 
and tell me you know it is the case ! Being a woman 
I can only feel that it is divine.” 

“ Yes, I know it at this moment — but as soon as 
I go on ’Change and attempt to do a little business 
I shall doubt the fact, and I shall begin to wonder if 
after all the religious people who assert that there is 
a devil and that he bags most of the game for his 
own hellish purposes are not altogether correct.” 

“ That is because we still regard money as be- 
longing to Caesar, because we do not realize that it 
is in essence divine and to be handled as a divine 
asset. But do come and let us see some of the very 
best work of Giotto, in the very best time to see 
it; that is by the light of the early morning sun.” 

Proceeding slowly and with hushed tread as be- 
comes those of the living privileged to enter a place 
hallowed by the genius of the mighty workers of the 
past, they made their way to the chapel of the Bardi 
della Liberta which Ruskin has asserted is the “ most 
perfect little Gothic chapel in Italy, so far as I can 


3ust frienbe 6 1 

know or can hear. There is no other of the great 
time which has all its frescoes in their places.” 

“ You would smile,” she said as they reached 
the chapel, “ if you knew the reason which made me, 
upon coming to Italy, give particular attention to the 
lives and doings of the Catholic priesthood.” 

“ Having Yankee blood in me, and knowing your 
past history, I can guess,” asserted Mr. Smith. 
" You wished to observe what men could accomplish 
who eschewed marriage altogether.” 

“ You are right. I was so used to a priesthood 
who went to the extreme, and insisted on a plurality 
of wives, that for a change I found the opposite kind 
a novel and interesting study.” 

“ What is your conclusion in the matter? ” asked 
Mr. Smith as he took the opera glass extended to 
him and proceeded to examine the ceiling of “ the 
most perfect little Gothic chapel in Italy,” a graceful 
vaulted affair containing four medallions represent- 
ing Giotto’s favorite subject, St. Francis and His 
Three Angels. 

“ I should say the tendency of the plural wife 
priesthood is to coarsen and animalize those ‘ who 
live their religion; * while that of the no-wife priest- 
hood, who also practise what they preach like St. 
Francis for instance, appears to me to become un- 
duly feminine, not only in appearance but in reality. 


62 


3u6t jfrienba 

and to be unable to entertain and practise healthy, 
all-round, common-sense views of life and human 
destiny. Be sure you give a good look at the medal- 
lion where ‘ Obedience bears a yoke on her shoul- 
ders, and lays a hand on a book,’ ” she added, with 
a light laugh. 

“ I suppose you want me to understand you have 
played that part lo, these many years! ” he rejoined, 
as he turned his glass from St. Francis and began 
to examine with care the Saint’s three commanding 
angels, Poverty, Obedience, and Chastity. 

“ Oh, I lay no claim to monopoly on that score. 
Plenty besides me have borne and still bear a yoke 
on their shoulders and lay hand on a book. And 
now that I no longer pledge obedience to cramping 
creeds or rites of the past, nor recognize any books 
as infallible — any more than the people who make 
them — I am not sure but that my present plight is 
more puzzling and difficult than my former one.” 

“ How so? ” 

“ Ah,” with a sigh, “ it was this way. When I 
practised simple obedience and thought the Bible — 
instead of the universe — the Word of God and that 
I should humbly accept the Apostle’s or my hus- 
band’s interpretation of it, I was never at a loss what 
to do. And sometimes when my heart felt crushed 
with demands for what seemed unnatural and stulti- 


3uet ifrienbs 


63 


fying self-abnegation, I had the opinion that I was 
really enacting the holy part of a saint, if not that of 
a martyr, and that I would enjoy a greater degree of 
bliss in the next world to make amends for my woe 
in this. But now that with more light I have cast off 
the yoke of at least servile obedience to the Mormon 
priesthood, and can no longer lay my hand on any 
book of the past as an infallible guide for the present, 
I find myself in a singularly trying situation with ap- 
parently no infallibility in sight. Indeed it is plain 
to me now that I have blundered tremendously in the 
past through sheer ignorance, and that it is likely I 
shall blunder a lot more if I live long enough. Not 
a comfortable feeling to entertain, and sometimes I 
look back with regret and am tempted to seek shelter 
in the old paradise again where one has only to 
obey — and not to think, to experiment, sometimes 
to fall — perhaps to die alone, unloved — nay even 
reprobated.” Mrs. Wells furtively wiped her face 
which was wet with tears. 

“ Cara mia, pray don’t weep,” pleaded Mr. 
Smith, much moved. “ Y ou cannot die unloved, un- 
wept while I live, for when you die I die too, so far 
as this world is concerned. Do you not believe me, 
Sarah? ” 

“ Yes, yes; but you must not show that you care 
for me by putting your arm around me,” protested 


64 


Just 3frient>0 

the weeping woman as she resolutely turned away 
to give close attention to some other fresco of Giotto’s, 
as though she was seeing them for the first time, 
when in truth she had looked at them so often — al- 
most as often as she had scanned the frightful pictures 
of Satan and Hell in the old family Bible, or those 
equally terrifying in Fox’s “ Book of Martyrs.” 

From this it must not be inferred that these works 
by the great Giotto, which for so long a period were 
covered with whitewash and were only discovered in 
1 853 when they were, of course, “ judiciously re- 
stored ” — deal with terrifying subjects, for this is 
not the case. The reasons why Mrs. Wells had so 
often and affectionately glanced them over were, 
first, that at the beginning of her study of art and 
artists she had greatly admired the character of the 
wonderful Giotto and had pleased herself by exam- 
ining every bit of his work whenever and wherever 
possible. The second reason why these frescoes 
were especially dear to her was because the artist 
was here representing his favorite subject, St. Francis, 
a character no less worthy of study and admiration 
perhaps than Giotto himself. 

Now to obtain as comprehensive an idea of the 
life of St. Francis and in as few words as possible, 
one must go to Ruskin, who tells in “ Mornings in 
Florence,” that the little octagon Baptistry in the 


3uet jfrienbs 


65 


centre of Florence, ten minutes’ walk from Santa 
Croce, was the central building likewise of European 
Christianity; but that from the day this odd-looking 
Christian temple was finished, and for four hundred 
years, Christianity, though she did her best, her best 
came to very little — “ when there rose up two men 
who vowed to God it should come to more. These 
two men were St. Francis and St. Dominic, the 
former an Apostle of Works, the latter of Faith; and 
that each sent a little company of disciples to teach 
and to preach in Florence: St. Francis in 1212, St. 
Dominic in 1220. 

“ The two little companies of priests, disciples, 
were settled, one ten minutes’ walk east of the old 
Baptistry, the other five minutes’ walk west of it. 
And after they had stayed quietly in such lodgings 
as were given them, preaching and teaching through 
most of the century, and had got Florence, as it were, 
heated through, she burst out into Christian poetry 
and architecture, of which you have heard much 
talk, burst into bloom of Amolfe, Giotto, Dante, 
Orcagna, and the like persons, whose works you pro- 
fess to have come to Florence that you may see and 
understand. 

“ Florence then, thus heated through, helped her 
teachers to build finer churches. The Dominicans, 
or White Friars, the Teachers of Faith, began their 
5 


66 


3u$ t jfrienbs 


church of St. Mary’s in 1279. The Franciscans, or 
Black Friars, the teachers of Works, laid the first 
stone of this church of the Holy Cross (Santa Croce) 
in 1294. And the whole city laid the foundations 
of its new cathedral in 1298. The Dominicans de- 
signed their own building; but for the Franciscans 
and the town worked the first great master of Gothic 
art, Arnolfe, with Giotto at his side, and Dante 
looking on, and whispering sometimes a word to 
both. 

“ And here you stand beside the high altar of the 
Franciscans’ church, under a vault of Arnolfe’s 
building, with at least some of Giotto’s colour still 
fresh on it, and in front of you, over the little altar, 
is the only reported authentic portrait of St. Francis, 
taken from life by Giotto’s master. Yet I can hardly 
blame my two English friends for never looking in. 
Except in the early morning light, unless you under- 
stand the relations of Giotto to St. Francis, and of 
St. Francis to humanity, it will be of little interest.” 

Doubtless it was due to the fact that the light was 
always so dim when Mr. Smith had strayed into 
Santa Croce, “ just to look around a bit at the monu- 
ments and things,” that he had never even stepped 
into this famous chapel where, Ruskin declares, is to 
be seen (by early morning light) “ developed Gothic, 
with Giotto in his consummate strength, and noth- 


Just 3Tnen&0 67 

ing lost in form of the complete design,” as Mrs. 
Wells reminded her companion. 

“To my mind, Sarah, this is rather poor stuff,” 
said Mr. Smith, after straining his eyes for some little 
time over the frescoes in which Mrs. Wells appeared 
to find so much satisfaction. 

“ Ah, but the light is too bad for you to see them 
well. We should have come sooner — or at least we 
should not have dilly-dallied in getting to them. Of 
course you know a lot about Giotto and love him, as 
anyone must who had given attention to him or to 
his work. Let us therefore glance for a moment at 
his work in the next chapel, the Peruzzi, where there 
are some frescoes depicting scenes in the lives of the 
two Johns. The light is a little stronger now — look 
quick! ” 

“ Where? ” said Mr. Smith, glancing at the va- 
rious frescoes quite helpless and dazed, and making 
out little more than general outlines for the light had 
become dim again and his eyesight was so poor. 

“Too bad ! We cannot see them understanding^ 
until the light is stronger. You see the sun is the 
Great Artist after all. Let us sit down a moment 
and learn if the darkness is not due to a passing cloud. 
Have you read what Ruskin says about Giotto? ” 

“ No, not Ruskin, but the regular guidebooks, I 
have read what they say.” 


68 


3ust ffrienbs 

“ Then I’ll venture to guess you know little about 
the real Giotto; your eyes being dim and the fres- 
coes old and only to be properly appreciated by 
those who have first learned to love the artist. Let 
me read you a little about him from * Mornings in 
Florence.’ There are only a few people in the church 
now, and they so scattered and far away we shall 
not disturb their devotions. Shall I? ” 

“ Certainly ! and we will sit right down here on 
the steps of the Peruzzi chapel, so as to be ready to 
see the famous pictures if the light is turned on again 
this morning.” 

Mr. Smith was only too glad of an excuse to rest 
a bit, not being accustomed to so much activity at so 
unreasonable an hour. 

“ But first I will read you a few words about St. 
Francis, since for so many years his gospel was in 
some respects my own belief. And, I think I but do 
myself justice to say that I lived what I believed to 
be true as earnestly as he did, yet I deserve no credit, 
for my sex has been bred to obedience, chastity, work, 
so long that habit has become second nature. * Now 
the gospel of Works, according to St. Francis, lay 
in three things: — You must work without money, 
and be poor. You must work without pleasure, and 
be chaste. You must work according to orders, and 
be obedient.’ ” 


3u0t 3 frient>$ 


69 


“ What is the matter with that gospel, Sarah — for 
a woman, I mean. You read it a little impatiently, 
as if you no longer quite endorsed it.” 

” Neither do I ! At least, I think it has been suffic- 
iently practised by women in a blind way. With 
the comparatively small number of your sex who 
chose to live this gospel it was different. They ac- 
cepted it from choice, from sincere conviction, after 
due deliberation.” 

“ Then you would no longer be willing to work 
without money and be poor, to work without pleas- 
ure and be chaste, to work according to orders and 
be obedient; eh, Sarah? ” — Mr. Smith re-adjusted 
his glasses and gave Mrs. Wells a scrutinizing, quiz- 
zical glance. 

“ No, I think not. Not now. I have lived that 
sort of life so long — so long! And I reaped only 
bitter tears and increasing despair. I will tell you 
about it later on. Let me read you a little about 
Giotto, just to show you what a healthy man he was 
and how, though he worked for the Franciscans, he 
probably got a fair price for his work; and as he 
loved his work he certainly took pleasure in it. Next, 
as he took an all-round, common-sense view of life, 
he was, I take it, healthily chaste; not degenerately 
so. As to the manner in which he should paint his 
wonderful frescoes, he certainly took no orders from 


70 


Juat friends 

anybody, not even from his great teacher Cimabue, 
but did them as his own nature, God-lit, prompted. 
But hear what Ruskin says ; he can tell you how this 
first great painter of life, as it is, wrought : — * Ob- 
serve, then, the special character of Giotto among 
the great painters of Italy, his being a practical per- 
son. Whatever other men dreamed of, he did. He 
could work in mosaic; he could work in marble; he 
could paint; and he could build; and all thoroughly 
— a man of supreme faculty, supreme common-sense. 
Accordingly, he ranges himself at once among the 
disciples of the Apostle of Works, and spends most 
of his time in the same apostleship.’ ” 

“ Is that all you are going to read to me of this 
Giotto who seems to have found in you and Ruskin 
such sincere admirers, after he has lain in his grave 
a half dozen centuries? ” 

“ I will read you some more, since you seem 
pleased, and then, if you desire, we will see more of 
Giotto’s work.” 

Mrs. Wells turned over several pages with evident 
reluctance, thinking to herself, “ It is all so beautiful, 
so truly said, how can I skip any of it? But I must 
do so, for to be tedious in these days is to be stupid. 
But I must read this. It is so pretty. — You know 
the story of Joachim and Anna, I hope? ” 

Mrs. Wells paused, and glanced at Mr. Smith to 


3 ust 3frient>0 


71 


see if he looked pleased or bored, which made him 
think she was not reading at all, but asking him a 
question. Accordingly he replied, with some em- 
barrassment : 

“ Can’t say that I do. It is a good while since I 
have read the Bible much. Though I, too, have been 
a disciple of the gospel of work, it has been a kind 
of work that had to be done up-to-date, or it was no 
good.” 

“ It does not matter,” replied Mrs. Wells, smil- 
ing to herself at his mistake, “ for even Ruskin seems 
to be rusty in respect to its ins and outs, and he does 
not venture to keep his readers waiting while he tells 
it. He declares that all we need know before exam- 
ining a certain fresco of Giotto’s, which we must see 
when we are rested, is * that here is an old husband 
and an old wife, meeting again by surprise after los- 
ing each other, and being in great fear; meeting at 
the place where they were told by God each to go, 
without knowing what was to happen there. 

“ * So they rushed into one another’s arms, and 
kissed each other.’ * No,’ says Giotto, ‘ not that.’ 

” ‘ They advanced to meet, in a manner conform- 
able to the strictest laws of composition; and with 
their draperies cast into folds which no one until 
Raphael could have arranged better.’ 

No,’ says Giotto, ‘ not that.’ 


72 


3u0t jfriertbs 

“‘St Anne has moved quickest; her dress just 
falls into folds, sloping backwards enough to tell you 
so much. She has caught St. Joachim by his mantle, 
and draws him to her, softly, by that. St. Joachim 
lays his hand under her arm, seeing she is like to faint, 
and holds her up. They do not kiss each other — 
only look into each other’s eyes. And God’s angel 
lays his hand on their heads.’ ’’ 

There was a peculiarity about Mrs. Wells’ voice 
when she read anything that greatly pleased her or 
deeply touched her heart. It seemed of its own 
accord to enter into the spirit of her feeling and to 
vibrate in unison, and all quite without effort on her 
part. Indeed, the clear, tender exquisiteness of her 
tones as she finished this beautiful description from 
Ruskin was as great a surprise to her as to her com- 
panion, and as inspirational as the deep tender look 
he gave her, when she paused. 


\ 



Chapter ;four 







XTbougb IT appear a sort of wanderer, tbe 
marrieb state bas not a stncerer frtenb than H 
am. irt ts tbe barbour of buman life, anb is, 
with respect to tbe things of tbis worlb, wbat 
tbe next worth is to tbis. lit is borne ; anb that 
worb conveps more tban anp otber worb can 
express, ffor a few pears we map glibe along 
tbe tibe of poutbful single life anb be wonber* 
fullp beligbteb ; but it is a tibe tbat flows but 
once, anb wbat is still worse, it ebbs faster 
tban it flows, anb leaves manp a bapless vop= 
ager agrounb. H am one, pou see, tbat bave 
experienceb tbe fate II am bescribing. H bave 
lost mp tibe ; it passeb bp while everp tbougbt 
of mp heart was on tbe wing for tbe salvation 
of mp bear Hmerica, anb f bave now as con* 
tenteblp as H can, mabe mpself a little bower 
of willows on tbe sbore tbat bas tbe solitarp 
resemblance of a borne. Sboulb H alwaps con= 
tinue tbe tenant of tbis borne, H hope mp female 
acquaintance will ever remember tbat it con* 
tains not tbe cburlisb enemp of tbeir sex, not 
tbe inaccessible co!b*bearteb mortal, nor tbe 
capricious tempereb obbitp, but one of tbe best 
anb most affectionate of tbeir frienbs. 

Extract from a Letter of Thomas Paine to a Bride. 



CHAPTER FOUR 


He was a man of public spirit, and public spirit can never be 
wholly immoral, since its essence is care for the common good. — 
George Eliot. 


next morning when Mrs. Wells reached 
the grand old Palazzo Pitti, she perceived 
Mr. Smith standing, with bared head and 
immovable as a statue, in front of its Cyclopean 
structure. It was now her turn to pull his sleeve 
in order to gain his attention, so absorbed was he in 
contemplating this magnificent building. Without 
wholly removing his glance from the object of his 
admiration, he shook her hand warmly, saying at 
the same time, with enthusiasm: 

“ That is the way to build houses for human be- 
ings. The Devil himself could not build a better 
one, so well proportioned, solid and grand it is. No 
flimsy fire- trap that ! ” 

“ Why do you say the Devil could not build a 
better one? ” 

“ Because, the Devil, having charge of the Great 
Majority, according to the orthodox, must be a past 

77 


78 


3u0t jfrienfcs 

master in the art of building ; and if ambition be one 
of his distinguishing traits, then certainly Luca Pitti 
was inspired of Satan to build this imposing palace. 
At one time Luca was the powerful opponent of the 
Medici, and it was during the period of his great 
power that he decided to build this palace, the win- 
dows of which he declared should be as big as the 
doors of the Medici palace.” 

“ It is wonderful how many of our finest acquisi- 
tions we owe to the spirit of ambitious rivalry,” com- 
mented Mrs. Wells. “ I don’t exactly see how we 
could get on without the Devil, who appears very 
often to be the Spirit of Progress in disguise. But, 
caro mio, it is evident we shall not get on with our 
own work to-day if we continue to spend our time 
gazing at this remarkable building, which we can 
easily imagine holding its own with Father Time.” 

“We will walk on then,” acquiesced Mr. Smith, 
as he obediently followed her through the entrance 
of the palace at the corner, where, having obtained 
a “ permesso,” they pursued their way along the 
fine, broad avenue leading to the grotto. 

They lingered before this quaint artistic structure 
only a few moments, for they had often gazed upon 
the picturesque and novel beauty of its singular con- 
struction, as well as puzzled over the unfinished 
statues of Michelangelo. The statues of Apollo 


3uet jfrienbe 


79 


and Ceres by Bandinelli, imitator of the great Angelo 
and no more remarkable than imitative work is apt 
to be, received scant attention from these two people, 
who were becoming in their old age connoisseurs in 
art. 

The beautifully graded and uphill terraces were 
not so easily mounted as the couple could have 
wished. In fact, Mr. Smith was obliged to stop now 
and then to get his breath, while Mrs. Wells skill- 
fully covered the ravages of time by telling amusing 
anecdotes, and dilating upon these fine terraces, laid 
out by Tribolo under Cosimo I, in 1550, and ex- 
tended by Buontalenti, until their umbrageous bowers 
furnished rare places of retreat for the poet, lover 
and artist to dream in, and certain open spaces com- 
manded most charming views of “ la bella Firenze.” 

This small party of two followed along the main 
avenue which arises to the Amphitheatre, so called 
because it was once used for festivities of the court. 
It comprises a large open space enclosed by oak 
hedges, beneath which rows of seats ascend regu- 
larly, the highest surmounted by a row of marble 
statues alternated with large antique vases. An 
Egyptian obelisk covered with hieroglyphics, and an 
ancient oblong basin of grey granite, adorn the 
centre. 

" Ah, suppose we rest a little here, and perhaps 


so 


3 u 0 t 3frienb6 

you will ^ive me the promised look backward over 
your life, so that we can come to some definite under- 
standing in regard to our future,” exclaimed Mrs. 
Weils, as she dropped into one of the long stone 
seats. 

“Yes, I would like you to know the leading facts 
of my life for two reasons : that we may be the better 
able to come to some conclusion as to our future 
course, and because I wish to forestall any vicious 
slander which may reach you through disinterested 
friends.” The last words were spoken in tones full 
of bitterness, accompanied by a satirical smile. 

“ It will be hard for you, I fear,” said Mrs. Wells, 
laying her hand for a moment sympathetically on 
one of his which idly clasped his knee. 

“ Hard, yes, I should say so; that is, the part I 
shall relate to you this morning to give you a fair 
idea of the sort of man I have been in my domestic 
relations. A woman usually judges a man by the 
way he has played that part of his life. Does she 
not? ” 

“ I am afraid you are right,” admitted Mrs. Wells 
with a laugh. 

“ That part, I must admit, I have played illy.” 

“ But let us hear how you have played it,” urged 
Mrs. Wells in cheerful tones, as her companion 
stopped short, seemingly unable to continue. 


8t 


3uet ffrienfcs 

“ Well, when I was what would be considered 
in these times a mere boy — I was just eighteen — 
there came to our rude village on the outskirts of 
civilization in the great West, a preacher and his 
family, which consisted of a wife, several small chil- 
dren and a very pious young woman who became 
the village schoolmistress. In those early days court- 
ship was a simple matter; a marriageable woman 
came to town where there was a great preponderance 
of my own sex, and was quickly surrounded by a 
circle of marriageable men in eager rivalry for her 
hand; though we were, without exception, a rough 
type, * chock-full * of energy and go, and just the 
sort to rush things in a new country. I was as proud 
as Lucifer when this pious young woman picked 
me out as ‘ the most refined of the lot,’ and decided, 
not without deep searching of the heart and much 
wrestling with God in prayer, that I would do. To 
win my suit I had painted my boyish conversion dur- 
ing some revival meetings more dramatically than 
truth warranted, thereby duly preparing for myself 
a fearful retribution, and for her a bitter, lifelong dis- 
appointment ; for we were scarcely settled in our new 
home when she discovered, like Madame Guyon 
before her, that the house of her husband was to be 
for her a house of mourning.” 

“Well, well! I am impatient to hear!” broke 

6 


82 


3u$t jfrien&s 


in Mrs. Wells, as Mr. Smith seemed to have stopped 
for good, he made such a long pause. 

“It was this way,” he continued finally. “ She 
began to doubt whether I had ever been deeply con- 
victed of Sin and truly converted, because for a time 
I refused to conduct family worship morning and 
evening. I will not dwell on the agonizing talks we 
had over this terrible situation. I tried at first, as 
gently as I could, to make Lydia — my wife’s name 
— understand I was not accustomed to praying aloud, 
and that I was then too old to begin that sort of 
religious performance. She said she would show me 
how ; and for a fortnight she herself read, each morn- 
ing and evening, a very long portion of Holy Writ 
and followed it up with explanatory remarks. Then 
we knelt down, and she prayed with wonderful fa- 
cility, but for a very long time — so long that too much 
of the day was consumed by these religious exercises 
for an American business man. 

“ At the close of this pious fortnight she again pre- 
sented the Bible to me, and insisted that now, having 
shown me how to lead in family worship, I ought 
to do so, as befitted the head of the household. To 
gratify my young wife I said, with assumed courage, 
* all right, I will do the best I can ! ’ Accordingly, 
after reading the portion of scripture selected for me 
by Lydia, we knelt down; but being painfully em- 


3ust ]fnent>6 


83 


barrassed — for I knew what a keen, theological critic 
I had by my side — I could think of nothing proper 
to say, my own way of praying having been so differ- 
ent from hers. 

“ Finally, the pause became so embarrassing to 
both of us, that Lydia urged entreatingly : Open 
your mouth, dear, and let the Lord fill it. Thus 
admonished, I blurted out the only words I could 
catch hold of : ‘ O, Lord give us a little common 
sense, Amen.* ” 

“ Well, what happened after that? ” asked Mrs. 
Wells with amused interest. She was sufficiently ac- 
quainted with the orthodox mind to be sure that a 
domestic tragedy followed on the heels of such a 
heterodox prayer. 

Mr. Smith sighed deeply “ It was very unfort- 
unate,” he said, “ that I had used the words * com- 
mon sense,’ for my wife immediately associated them 
with the Evil One, her preacher having proved to the 
satisfaction of his church that Thomas Paine was a 
child of darkness, of sin, of Satan. 

“ When I saw the effect of my words on her per- 
turbed countenance and realized what I had done, I 
only made matters worse by saying, ‘ Pray, my dear 
Lydia, forget the dreadful things your preacher said 
the other day about the life of Tom Paine and dwell 
on the fact that this same man did more to launch the 


84 


3ust jfrienbs 

New World on a career of Liberty, Progress and 
Prosperity than any other human being. Why even 
John Quincy Adams admitted that Paine’s pamphlet 
“ Common Sense ” crystallized public opinion, and 
was really the first factor in bringing about the 
Revolution.’ Then I added, * It’s still a mooted 
question whether it was Thomas Jefferson or Thomas 
Paine who wrote our glorious Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, though it is my opinion that it required 
both the Thomases to get up such a wonderful asset 
of Liberty.’ 

“ Lydia’s countenance did not lighten as I had 
hoped. 4 I know or care little about politics,’ she 
said. * The one thing needful to know is Jesus 
Christ and Him crucified.’ Then she proceeded to 
assure me that it was plain that I, too, was a child 
of darkness and subject to the Evil One, and in- 
sisted that we kneel again, when she prayed in a 
manner that must have rivaled Savonarola himself.” 

44 Ah, I begin to understand why you dislike that 
ascetic, but terrible monk so much,” cheerfully in- 
terposed Mrs. Wells. 

“ Yes, Lydia, like Savonarolo with his fierce 
trinity, had a mania for reading and meditating on 
the most vindictive passages of what she was pleased 
to call ‘ The Word of God.’ At length the portions 
of Scripture selected for family worship, as well as 


3u0t jfrienbs 


85 


her own prayers, became so depressing that I finally 
refused to have anything more to do with 4 family 
prayers,’ and thereafter Lydia regarded me as a 
reprobate of the most incorrigible type. Although 
she confined her reading mostly to 4 The Word of 
God,’ believing it contained all the knowledge re- 
quired for human needs, she occasionally read in the 
biography of John Wesley, and developed a great 
sympathy for him for various reasons, perhaps the 
chief being that he, like herself, had wedded disas- 
trously. 

44 Our lack of sympathy in religious matters acted 
as a blight on our whole domestic life ; for so long as 
a person believes you are a child of Darkness, a co- 
worker with his Satanic Majesty, he naturally thinks 
that everything you do is inspired of the devil. We 
therefore discovered, in no great while, that we 
could not agree in respect to anything, and a chilly 
sort of politeness rapidly supplanted tenderness, ex- 
cepting when we had a violent contention over some- 
thing in connection with the children, whom we both 
loved exceedingly and with the lavish affection v/hich 
estranged parents concentrate upon their offspring. 

44 In respect to the rearing of these children we 
were extremely unfortunate. We lost most of them 
almost as quickly as they came, and at the end of 
ten years had but two left, though my wife had sue- 


86 


3u0t ifriertbs 

cessfully emulated Mother Wesley in bearing a child 
each year. In still another respect she imitated this 
remarkable woman; she began betimes to break the 
wills of the poor innocents who remained to us for 
a year or more, until they learned to fear the rod 
before they could toddle, and by that time had like- 
wise learned to cry softly. In fact, they were quickly 
taught by my resolute wife to conduct themselves 
with the utmost propriety, to eat and drink, pray, 
play or take their medicine dutifully, and in all re- 
spects to conduct themselves after the manner of 
miniature saints. 

“ Sad to relate, I was the only one in our family 
who ever made a rumpus, and occasionally I made a 
scene about the children that would have caused the 
hair of almost any other woman to stand on end, but 
not so with Lydia, for the angrier I grew the more 
serene and saint-like became her expression and man- 
ner. As for speech, she never deigned to reply 
under those circumstances, but there were times when 
she was what would be called in these days ‘ eroti- 
cally emotional,’ when she would weep and groan 
and pray almost the whole night through. 

“ I soon observed that these extremely hysterical 
seasons took place when a revival was in progress; 
so, when I heard that the religious people were pre- 
paring for a revival, I knew very well what was 


3ust jTienfcs 


87 


coming to me. At such times Lydia would not 
only pray for the conversion of the whole world, with 
unceasing fervor and deep travail of spirit, but she 
would plead in an especially irritating manner for 
her dear husband who dwelt in such thick darkness 
and was utterly lost, unless Christ, in His infinite 
mercy and pity, would snatch him like a brand from 
the burning.” 

Mr. Smith paused a moment and then said apolo- 
getically : 

“ I am not telling you this exactly as it was, be- 
cause it all happened a good while ago, and my 
memory about some things is poor.” 

“ You are doing very well. I have seen several 
Lydias, male and female, in my day,” returned 
Mrs. Wells, encouragingly. 

“ Not like mine. God forbid! I think only the 
sturdiest sort of person could have survived what was 
my portion during the various revival seasons of those 
ten years. Imagine a man, worn with the busy cares 
of the day to the dropping point, fallen into a sound 
slumber, only to be wakened by the return of his 
wife late at night from meeting when he knows there 
will be no rest ” 

“For the wicked,” interrupted Mrs. Wells. 

“ For the wicked,” dutifully repeated Mr. Smith, 
“ until dawn, when I was in the habit of getting up. 


88 


3ust frienbs 

though sometimes I arose much earlier. During all 
these hours Lydia would carry on in a most terrible 
way for a man a bit sensitive. She would come to 
my bedside and weep and pray and beg me to come 
to Jesus now, since now was the accepted time. I 
would try in every way I could think of to pacify her 
and to get her to come to bed. Sometimes I would 
try to reason with her. I would tell her that it would 
not do at all for everybody to be like Jesus, that God 
had seen lit to make us all different, and that each 
should do his own work and, as far as possible, in 
his own way. ‘ But it is the Atonement you ought to 
accept,’ she would urge and threaten that if I 
did not we would lose all our children ; that whoever 
did not accept Jesus Christ and trust in the salvation 
prepared by Him and accepted of God, would not 
only be damned everlastingly, but would meet with 
terrible afflictions in this world. 

“ As Lydia had the Scriptures almost by heart — 
so it seemed to me who had to listen to so much of 
it in the small hours of the night — she was never at 
a loss for texts which she thought particularly appli- 
cable to my case. Next to Revelations, I dreaded 
her starting out on various portions of the Old Testa- 
ment, especially Leviticus, beginning with the four- 
teenth verse. This verse and the following, to the 
number of a dozen, she would repeat in the most 


3u6t tfrienbs 


89 


blood-curdling fashion, dwelling with peculiar em- 
phasis on the parts relating to the burning ague — 
something very prevalent among us at certain seasons 
of the year; the robbing of the children, the plagues, 
the wild beasts, the sword, all of which calamities 
we occasionally suffered in those times, when visita- 
tions of wild beasts, Indians, locusts and one thing 
and another contributed to make life an uncertain 
and dangerous business. But I must say, that while 
I never quailed before either wild beast or wilder 
man, there were times when I quailed in the night, 
before the tearful eyes of my wife, and actually 
quaked when I heard her groan forth her prayers 
for my salvation as she knelt by my bedside, hours 
at a time.” 

“Iam afraid I should have been tempted to please 
a person so deadly in earnest and so beside herself 
with fear in my behalf,” interposed Mrs. Wells. “ I 
should have pretended to be saved in the way she — 
of the orthodox, rather — thought necessary.” 

“ It was a temptation to yield and let Lydia run. 
me spiritually, as you say. Again and again have 
I accompanied my wife to revival meetings with the 
understanding that if the Spirit moved me — I was al- 
ways careful to put in that proviso — I would rise 
for prayers. But if you could have seen how they 
carried on in those early, rude times you would not 


90 


3u6t jfrienba 

blame me for my stubborn resistance to become a 
party to their methods. Why, words fail me to 
describe the confusion that took place in our town 
and the surrounding country while a spirited re- 
vival was in progress. All regular labor was sus- 
pended. Everybody made it a business to go to 
meeting to get converted, or if already in the * fold ’ 
to help bring in the ‘ ungodly.’ At some of the 
meetings I attended there would be hysterical laugh- 
ing, crying, shouting, sprawling, fainting, all taking 
place at the same time, until one wondered if the 
people were not possessed by something of a diabolic 
nature, rather than a baptism of the Holy Spirit as 
was claimed.” 

“ One night in particular stands out most vividly 
in my memory. The preacher was a noisy, energetic 
dark-skinned man with a heavy black beard, a thick 
black mane of hair and eyes like burning coals. The 
burden of his fiery talk that night was to the effect 
that the people were all damn’d, damn’d, damn’d! 
If you think this sort of preaching was not effective, 
you should have seen the results before midnight was 
reached. They were so thick on the floor — ‘ spirit- 
ually slain,’ he said — that you could scarcely take a 
step for fear of treading on somebody’s hand or foot 
or hair. Some lay perfectly quiet and looked as 
though they were dead; some wept, and many were 


3rit6t frienbe 


91 


groaning or making strange, unearthly noises. Sev- 
eral of those who were in the ‘ Ark of Safety ’ ap- 
proached me and either pleaded and quoted Scrip- 
ture or knelt by my side and prayed aloud that my 
heart of stone might be exchanged for one of flesh. 
My wife was one of these, but she finally lost pa- 
tience with my backwardness in asking for prayers 
and declared, that since I would not flee from destruc- 
tion, I would certainly be turned into salt, like Lot’s 
wife. Being heartily sick of all I saw, I told her I 
thought that condition was preferable to being turned 
into a damned fool.” 

“And what did your wife do then?” eagerly 
inquired Mrs. Wells, who evidently thought a re- 
mark of that character was calculated to bring on a 
crisis of some kind. 

“ She looked at me in a most dramatic way for a 
while, as though her grief and anger were too great 
for speech, then she said, * My poor Thomas you will 
be among those who will cry to the mountains and 
rocks to fall on you and hide you from the face of 
Him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath 
of the Lamb.’ Having spoken thus, she did not 
wait to hear my reply, which was to the effect that 
I thought my fate was to be turned into salt, but hur- 
ried away to find a more hopeful field of labor. As 
both our children were ill I went home, leaving my 


92 


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wife to the care of a clerk who was present and still 
in the possession of his wits. At this time my position 
was even less enviable than ordinarily. My wife 
was not less alarmed over the condition of our chil- 
dren than myself, but she thought they would only be 
spared to us if I ‘ accepted Christ,’ as she called it, 
hence, partly, the fanatical religious persistence with 
which she pestered me day and night. 

“ In addition to domestic troubles I had some of a 
political nature only less harassing. I was running 
for an office which I wanted, not for the money there 
was in it — being always fortunate in financial mat- 
ters — but really because my friends thought I was 
the best person for the place, and because I would 
have liked to have played a part in the fortunes of 
this particular swift-growing young city, something 
like the Citizen Medici played in Florence. But 
in allowing my name to be put forward I had 
not foreseen that right in the thick of the campaign 
a revival would start up which would carry every- 
thing before it. 

“ Under any circumstances a political campaign 
is an indecent affair and damaging to a person’s 
character and morals, since to secure success one must 
pull wires and lose something of that straightforward, 
inborn independence of character which each man 
should prize as his highest heritage from heaven. 


93 


3ust 3frient>$ 

This particular campaign was of a very scandalous 
character, for the religious element of the town and 
country had set itself to the task of defeating me, on 
account of my being ‘ a shrewd Godless infidel,* as 
they put it. As my character for honesty and probity 
was unimpeachable, and they could not assail my 
business record while living in their midst with any 
hope of success, they went to work to dig up my 
past; and here I must say their efforts met with the 
reward they fondly desired, and, as if to help them in 
their endeavors to down me, both our remaining 
children died.*’ 

“So sad! so very sad! ’* said Mrs. Wells, with 
tears in her voice as well as in her modest brown 
eyes. 

“Yes, it was a Job-like crisis; everything con- 
nected with me rushing to destruction, and I myself 
so harassed night and day that I began to feel it 
would be a relief if the mountains and rocks would 
fall on me and end the whole business, so far as 
this world was concerned, anyway.*’ 

“ But what did the church people succeed in dig- 
ging up? ’* asked Mrs. Wells, with feminine eager- 
ness. 

“ They dug up the story that I was married to my 
poor little innocent sister and whispered it about with 
nauseous details, showing the inventive dramatic 


94 


3ust jfrienbe 

genius of a desert priest,” replied Mr. Smith with 
some heat, recalling the bitterness of the past. 

“ Of course they defeated you. But was there 
any truth in the scandalous tale? ” 

“ I cannot say for certain, though I set two of the 
shrewdest lawyers in that section to find out. They 
easily learned that my parents had been slain by the 
Indians, and that I had been put in charge of strangers 
while an infant. One of the lawyers got on the 
track of a story that my mother had given birth to 
a girl before wedlock with my father, and that the 
result of her clandestine love had been placed in 
charge of a Methodist minister and his wife, who 
brought up the little waif as their own, and gave her 
their own name.” 

“ What did your wife say to all this? ” 

“ She was furiously angry and said I merely wished 
to shirk the responsibility of being the cause of my 
children’s death, by persisting in being a Godless 
reprobate. I was of the opinion that there was 
truth in this scandal. At any rate I made up my 
mind that I would not be the cause of terrible suffer- 
ing to any more poor little innocents, if I could help 
it, so I told her I would go away, leaving her well 
fixed, of course, and begin life over again. I ad- 
vised her to procure a divorce in due time, and be- 
gin life again herself, and cautioned her to be sure 


3ust tfrien&s 


95 


this time to marry a person whose conviction of 
sin and conversion was of the clearest descrip- 
tion.” 

“ Common sense advice under the circumstances,” 
nodded Mrs. Wells. 

“ One would have thought so,” sighed Mr. Smith, 
” but otherwise thought Lydia, to whom the very 
word * divorce * always struck dismay. Then I said 
that perhaps by spending still more time we could 
be able to prove that she was my sister and simply 
have the marriage annulled.” 

“ What did she say to that? ” 

“ She was even more furious over this proposition. 
‘What! prove her an illegitimate child? Destroy 
the character of her mother ? * She would never ad- 
mit that one mother bore us, for a moment. * The 
idea,* she said, * of one mother giving birth to a re- 
ligious person like myself, and a Godless Infidel like 
you — impossible ! ’ I suggested to her that we were 
not more unlike than Jacob and Esau, who were not 
only born of the same father and mother but were 
twins; but not to tire you, the upshot was that I left 
her with the bulk of my possessions, and started off 
to find new fortunes in some new wilderness of the 
great West. Pray let us have a bite to eat. To go 
over the past is a mighty hard business. I sometimes 
hope there is a sort of river Styx we pass through 


96 3u0t ]frienb 0 

occasionally which blots it all out and leaves us only 
the net result.” 

“ Or at least, if not blotted out, will show that 
all this travail and pain wac a needed part of our 
education, which, when sufficiently dimmed by time 
will form a romantic feature of our history,” suggested 
Mrs. Wells, who, proceeded temptingly to arrange 
the lunch she had thoughtfully prepared, while Mr. 
Smith said wearily: 

“ Perhaps, perhaps; but now I never glance back, 
even upon my poor successes, if I can help myself, 
lest the despairing failures trail along with them and 
make me wish I had never been born.” 


Chapter jfiv’e 




Z be earliest American plea In behalf of Woman was 
made by Gbomas Paine In Bugust, 1775, a part of wblcb 
Is as follows : 

44 Bflronted In one country by polygamy, wblcb gives 
tbem tbelr rivals for Inseparable companions ; enslaved In 
another by Indissoluble ties, wblcb often join tbe gentle 
to tbe rude, and sensibility to brutality : even In coun* 
tries wbere tbey may be esteemed most bappy, con* 
strained In tbelr desires In tbe disposal of tbelr goods, 
robbed of freedom of will by tbe laws, tbe slaves of 
opinion, wblcb rules tbem wltb absolute sway, and con* 
strues tbe slightest appearance Into guilt, surrounded on 
all sides by judges who are at once tbelr tyrants and 
seducers, and who after having prepared tbelr faults, 
punlsb every lapse wltb dishonour— nay, usurp tbe right of 
degrading tbem on suspicion !— wbo does not feel for tbe 
tender sex 7 12et such H am sorry to say Is tbe lot of 
woman over tbe wbole earth. /Ilban In regard to tbem, In 
all climates and In all ages, has been either an Insensible 
busband or an oppressor; but tbey have sometimes 
experienced tbe cold and deliberate oppression of pride, 
and sometimes tbe violent and terrible tyranny of jeal* 
ousy. When tbey are not beloved tbey are notblng ; and 
when tbey are tbey are tormented. tTbey have almost 
equal cause to be afraid of Indifference and love, ©ver 
three quarters of tbe globe mature has placed tbem be* 
tween contempt and misery. . 

44 Bven among people wbere beauty receives tbe blgb* 
est bomage we find men wbo would deprive tbe sex of 
every bind of reputation. 4 Zbe most virtuous woman/ 
says a celebrated Oreeft, 4 Is sbe wbo Is least talked of/ 
fTbat morose man, while be Imposes duties on women 
would deprive tbem of tbe sweets of public esteem, and 
In exacting virtues from tbem would make It a crime to 
aspire to honour.” * * * 
















CHAPTER FIVE 


Woman in fact represents or ought to represent, the principles of 
Divine Love. She is intended to convey to man vibrations pro- 
ceeding straight from the very heart of Being, divine vibrations 
without which he can in no real sense be said to exist. — George 
Barlow. 


'TZ' 


'HESE seats are really very comfortable, con- 
sidering they are hewn out of stone and on so 
large a scale,” Mrs. Wells said cheerily after 
their little lunch had been dispatched. This amphi- 
theatre must seat a couple of thousand people. 
What think you? ” 

“ I should guess that number might be seated here, 
and comfortably,” answered Mr. Smith, making a 
rapid mental calculation. “Yes, the Medici knew 
how to make things comfortable. They believed in 
good living and they were far from being ascetic 
monks. Two of the later ones, it is true, tried to 
play the part of Popes, and several were Cardinals; 
but as followers of the meek and lowly Jesus who 
knew not where to lay His head, I can’t say I think 
them a success. Nevertheless, always and every- 
where, they stood for the arts which make for peace, 
101 


102 


3u0t jTiente 

and beauty, and for wide as well as high thinking — 
and generous living. No emasculated ascetics 
among them! ” 

“ How about Catherine de Medici? ” asked Mrs. 
Wells with a sly smile; “ did she stand for peace? ” 

“ Only the force of circumstances made her seem 
an exception to the rule. She was in possession of 
information that a new rising of Protestants was to 
take place, when there would be bloody rioting, if 
not an overturning of the government and all that a 
revolution entailed. She simply acquiesced in the 
forestalling of such an event by adopting the only 
certain means of prevention. The Medici never re- 
sorted to extreme measures unless absolutely sure 
that only extreme measures would answer. When a 
whole people are brutally drunk with fanaticism, 
brutal measures of coercion must be adopted.” 

“ Nevertheless, had I been in Catherine’s place, I 
should have preferred to have been massacred with 
all my family and friends, rather than consent to deal 
such an underhanded, bloody blow to so many 
people,” declared Mrs. Wells, emphatically. 

“ It was a case of one set of mad, persecuting fan- 
atics making away with another set equally crazy. 
If the Catholics had not got in their work when they 
did, the Protestants would soon have been masters 
of the situation, for their secret plot of bloody revolu- 


3u6t jfrienbs 103 

tion was about ripe for execution, and their swiftly 
augmenting numbers already a dangerous menace. 
Catherine ” 

“ Pray, pray, caro mio, let us leave further dis- 
cussion of questionable methods to those Medici in- 
termarried with aristocrats or royalty for another 
time. Y ou see I am very anxious to determine what 
I should do next. So please let me hear what fur- 
ther things connected with your past life you want me 
to know.” 

“ I see, I see, I am rambling, as usual. I forget 
where I left off,” he said, vainly toying with a portion 
of the heavy fringe of the soft, warm shawl Mrs. 
Wells had laid down before they seated themselves. 

“ You stopped your recital just when you were 
about to make a new beginning in a new wilderness.” 

“ Yes, yes, I remember now. How wretched and 
despairing I felt, when I dragged myself to the grave- 
yard for the last time to take leave of the little row 
of graves, which my wife to the last insisted had been 
the price of my stony heart and my continued refusal 
to accept Christ as a mediator between an angry God 
and myself. I remember how out of patience she 
used to get when I would deny as absurd that He 
who was no less Infinite Justice than Infinite Love, 
and no less Infinite Wisdom than Love, should ever 
be angry with His children or that He should cause 


104 


Suet 3frient>0 

a world to evolve in such a manner that one or two 
of the little creatures on it could seriously interfere 
with its predestined order and the gradual unfold- 
ment of the human family.” 

“ Ah, but do let me hear how you got on in the 
new wilderness,” insisted Mrs. Wells. “ You are no 
farther than the graveyard containing the mortal 
bodies of your little ones.” 

“ True. I went there to weep and pray in my 
own way. On reaching the place I found our nurse 
had preceded me there. She was prostrate upon the 
grave of little Vina who had died but a few weeks 
previous. She was quite still and motionless; and 
for a few moments I feared she was dead, so cold 
and lifeless did she appear with her face close to the 
cold earth, near a heap of dead flowers. None of us 
had been there since the last burial had taken place — 
for we had all been too ill, too much overcome with 
grief and trouble. Having gotten a little strength 
she had come there to grieve and to find a grave, 
too, so she told me, but when I had raised her to a 
sitting posture and had chafed her hands a bit, I pre- 
vailed on her to take a dose of some tonic medicine I 
happened to have with me and we fell to talking as 
she revived under its influence. She confessed to me 
that in ministering in my home and to my children she 
had come to love me. So odd, was it not? ” 


3ust frienbs 


105 


“ No, I don’t think so,” said Mrs. Wells, as 
her companion seemed again to be lost in the 
past. 

“ That is what she said,” — he continued after a 
time — “ that she loved me as only a woman can love, 
once in a lifetime, a mature woman like herself. 
‘ What ought I to do under the circumstances? * I 
queried, as she lay passively in my arms, as lovingly 
and trustfully as my little ones were wont to do. 
Hitherto I had not stopped to consider the matter of 
love in connection with her, but now I thought seri- 
ously and tried to look deeply into my heart, and I 
found it not difficult to reach the conclusion that if 
I did not already love her most tenderly, it would be 
quite easy to do so — she was such a noble charac- 
ter, and had been so devoted to me and mine. 

“ However, having made one serious matrimonial 
blunder I was not going to be in a hurry to risk an- 
other. So I said, ‘ Listen, Lily.’ A faint 4 Yes,’ 
came in response. 4 You are ill and unstrung; so is 
Lydia, and so am I. In truth, we are all of us about 
half insane with what we have had to undergo, what 
with terrible sickness, mad religion, nasty politics and 
hellish tongue-tattle, I am sure that each of us needs 
rest, a change of environment, a new sort of life, so 
that we can get back to our healthy state again. I, 
myself, though a fairly strong man, am so run down 


106 


3ust friends 

that I find it easier to act in an insane, passionate, 
irresponsible manner, than to try and take hold of 
things by the right handle. I have left my wife in 
possession of plenty of means so that she can do 
what she likes with herself — no longer with me, for 
I have left her for good. Whether she will ever pro- 
cure a divorce from me is doubtful; so that, if we 
take one another in the hope of rendering our lives 
more satisfactory and more complete, I suspect we 
shall have to do so in what is called an unlawful 
union. It is my conviction that I shall be happy to 
form this union, if, after a year of rest and recuper- 
ation and an entire severance from me, you still feel 
that you love me and are willing to pay the price 
which unlawful wedlock always demands? ” 

She made no reply to these remarks for a little 
while, and I said nothing for I wished not to hasten 
the decision of her mind and heart at so critical a 
moment in our lives. “ The time will seem long,” 
she faltered at last. “ But true love can afford to 
wait,” I said in reply. 

“ Finally she agreed to my proposal to wait a 
whole year and to employ the time in regaining the 
health she had lost in attendance upon my family. I 
made her accept a sufficient sum of money to go to 
Europe in the meantime, for she was a woman of 
artistic tastes, and she had a married sister in Florence 


3uat 3frient>6 107 

at that time. As for myself — I went into a new 
American wilderness to begin life over again. 

“ At the end of the year my wife was still stub- 
bornly set against the idea of a divorce, and to have 
procured one myself I should have been obliged to 
prove the criminally-near relationship of my wife and 
myself, and the probable pre-marital immorality of 
our parents. I could not make up my mind to take 
this radical course, though if I had it to do over again 
I should do the fair thing by my sensitive Lily, cost 
what it might. 

“ Receiving word from her that she was as firm 
in her love as ever, and ready to enter into an informal 
alliance if a regular union was impossible, I started 
east, determined to talk the whole matter over with 
her and her near relatives before we made our final 
choice; for the more I thought the matter over, the 
more I feared that so delicate and sensitive a creature 
was unequal to such an ordeal. Moreover, every- 
thing conspired from now on to hurry us into the only 
sort of union possible at this critical time, for even my 
own home papers in the new wilderness contained 
more than one humorous reference to the reason 
which made it so necessary for me to go east, in which 
they assured their readers that, under the circum- 
stances, nobody could take my place or could stand 
up satisfactorily by the side of a certain eastern belle 


108 


3uet 3frienfc6 


and make the responses expected on such an occasion. 
I contradicted nothing; and when we put in an ap- 
pearance in the — at that time — newest West, every- 
body received us with open arms and Lily became a 
great favorite, for she was of a very lovable disposition 
as well as beautiful to look upon. 

“ Of course we had no children. I held the opin- 
ion that an informal marriage should be a childless 
one, for Society is so cruel to ‘ illegitimate children,’ 
as they are called. Hence I encouraged Lily to en- 
gage in affairs connected with the well-being of the 
poor in the community, and she was for a long time 
president of one strong, energetic philanthropic so- 
ciety, and frequently the acting secretary for others. 
I think every poor child in the city loved her, and cer- 
tainly every girl who had loved more impetuously 
than wisely was more or less indebted to her kind and 
helpful influence. This happy state of affairs might 
possibly have continued to our — or Lily’s — dying 
day, but fortune having smiled on us in various 
ways, I grew too secure and ventured once more into 
politics.” 

“Ah, I see how it was; but tell me. Only it 
will be so hard for you to do so.” Mrs. Wells 
clasped his hand in hers as if to impart courage and 
strength to him. 

“ The cause at issue was in essence the old one. 


3u$t 3frieni>s 


109 


— always on the boards and never laid — the strug- 
gle with Monopoly, cunningly disguised of course, 
over new fields of exploitation in the New West. 
The people were being fooled as usual by a plausi- 
ble spokesman, put forward by self-interest as op- 
posed to the interest of the commonwealth, and I 
stood for the people, of course. 

“ Everything proceeded most satisfactorily until 
the very last, when the religious element sprang on 
Lily and myself the most hideous and nauseating 
scandal imaginable, and at once the graft-seeking 
politicians and the orthodox leaders commenced to 
work together, hand and glove. It is probable that 
not Christ himself — if he had suddenly appeared 
and had tried to convince his most zealous followers 
that, though not married by man, we were yet living 
a sweet, sane, healthy life together — could have 
produced the slightest impression in our favor. The 
truth is that not being tied tightly together by law 
our relations were delicate, sensitive, ideal. I was 
always on my best behavior and continued to play 
the part of the lover with ever increasing joy and 
satisfaction, both to myself and my noble Lily. 
Truly love is a sensitive plant; and I am inclined to 
think it thrives best when associated with liberty. 
Is not that likewise the belief of Thomas Paine) ” 

“ Most assuredly. He thought the indissoluble 


I to 3u6t friend 

bond paved the way for indifference and neglect; 
that, being sure of each other, they ceased to take 
the pains to be mutually agreeable, — indeed became 
careless if they displeased and yet angry if re- 
proached, with so little relish for each other’s com- 
pany that anybody else’s was more agreeable, and 
more entertaining.” 

“Good heavens! how true of my own married 
life. What a hell it was, to be sure ! ” 

“ Ah, but you must tell me now about Lily.” 

“ Of course our refusal to make any statements 
about our domestic relations, either publicly or to 
disinterested friends who plied us with questions, had 
the effect of shelving me as completely as Parnell 
was shelved when scandal overtook him. Having 
been through the mill once before, I would have 
taken the matter coolly enough had it not been for 
the blighting effect the nauseous tittle-tattle had on 
the loveliest being God ever permitted to come into 
the world. From the day when a dear, disinterested 
friend brought her a filthy newspaper full of subtle 
lies and indecent caricatures, she was killed as effect- 
ually as though she had been shot, like Lincoln, by 
the hand of an assassin; and in less than a month 
after the campaign was over, her exquisite form was 
lying deep within the grave. Heart disease was the 
cause of her sudden death, the doctor said. Poor 


3net jfrienbs 


111 


man ! he had to attribute it to something, and it was 
better form to say that his patient had died of heart 
failure rather than a broken heart.” 

“ I should have thought you could have cheered 
one another up. You still had each other, and God 
is good. You had but to wait the turn of the tide, 
and bide your time.” 

“ True. But it made me mad to see how every- 
body, even the vilest, cut poor Lily. It broke her 
heart to think she had been instrumental in ruining 
my political aspirations, though I told her that so 
long as the people could not distinguish between an 
honest man who wished to serve them and a dis- 
honest one who meant to betray them, they deserved 
to be sold out to the Devil. But all the thousand 
endearments I lavished upon her were vain — as use- 
less as the effort to resuscitate a delicate plant nipped 
by the blighting breath of Jack Frost. She could 
not eat; she could not sleep. Everything tired her. 
I could see that it did, and yet she uttered no word 
of complaint and never wept nor made a fuss, as 
some women would have done under the circum- 
stances. I just found her dead one morning, looking 
up as though she saw the angels coming for her.” 

“ The angels should have given her time to bid 
you good-bye,” said Mrs. Wells, as he paused 
longer than usual. 


112 


3u$t jfrienbs 

“ I am not sure. Indeed, I think she had suffered 
enough, and that it was well they ran off with her 
at the last. 

“ Pray, let us walk about a little before you tell 
me any more.” 

Mrs. Wells rose as she spoke, and as soon as Mr. 
Smith, sad and dejected, had imitated her example, 
she took the heavy shawl, folded it and gave it to 
him to carry. They walked along one of the many 
beautiful wooded walks so picturesque and charm- 
ing, and though the steady upward climb was some- 
what harassing, it served to divert Mr. Smith’s 
mind from his sad story, and was therefore a wel- 
come change for both himself and Mrs. Wells. 
When they had reached a fine, well-seated open 
space which commanded an interesting view of most 
of the city, they again laid down the shawl and 
seated themselves upon it. For a few moments 
both Mr. Smith and Mrs. Wells yielded to the temp- 
tation to gaze absently upon fair Florence, regard- 
less of passing time. 

It was the month of May, the most perfect for 
the Medici city, when the country round about was 
bathed in its freshest, most radiant loveliness; and 
the Arno rushed eagerly along in its fruitful course, 
a streak of scintillating beauty. The mass of build- 
ings in the higher parts of the garden of Boboli were 


3ust jfrienfcs 


1 13 


sufficient to give complete satisfaction to the admir- 
ing couple without any of the perplexity incident to 
a more vast expanse of buildings. The magnificent 
old cathedral, with its perfect marble campanile, lay 
in serene splendor quite close to their feet; while 
grouped around these masterpieces of architecture 
in every direction were the great fortress palaces. 
Florence is emphatically a city of palaces, and its 
environment is not less beautiful and satisfying to 
the artistic eye than Florence herself; for nothing 
could be more exquisite than the villa-dotted hills, 
with their vineyards and olive plantations against 
a background of picturesque mountains that glimmer 
away into the blue of the sky — a fit setting, and now 
her only one, since the graceful wall of towers which 
jewelled her brow like a royal diadem has given 
place to “ improvements ” — so-called by the mod- 
ern economic mind. 

“ Florence is a thing of beauty still — is she not? ” 
sighed Mrs. Wells after a time. 

“ Yes, yes, but getting more commonplace all the 
time,” Mr. Smith replied. “ No great financial 
family loves her now as the Medici once did, and 
I can easily believe what a certain Englishman has 
declared to be the matter with the Florence of the 
last half century.” 

“ What is that? - 

8 


1 14 


3uat jfrien&s 


“ That ‘ Her historic interest and importance 
are being constantly effaced.’ I know her taxes are 
now six times as great as they were under the sway 
of the Grand-Dukes, even. Of course the Citizen 
Medici were adepts in matters of finance, as in every- 
thing else, and though there was grumbling, as there 
always will be no matter how thrifty the manage- 
ment, their time was the golden period for Florence 
— literally as well as figuratively.” 

“ Ah, but Florence is resting now. She and all 
Italy will bloom again one of these days; when her 
people are content to follow the bent of their God- 
given genius. But we must get down to our proper 
business again.” 

“Yes, yes, I understand. I will ramble no more, 
I promise you, till I have done with this recital.” 

“You were on the point of making a new depart- 
ure, I think, after the transplanting of the delicate 
Lily to a less frosty clime.” Mrs. Wells hazarded 
the guess from what she had been able to divine 
through intuitive knowledge of his temperament. 

“ You are right. As the country was booming 
at the time, I easily turned my possessions into gold 
and took passage for Liverpool. From Liverpool I 
went to London, and in no time I hastened to Aus- 
tralia in search of a new wilderness.” 

“To Australia! I wonder if you met my brother 


3 ust ftienbs 115 

Jack out there! ” asked Mrs. Wells in a frenzy of 
excitement. 

“ I wonder — if — I did,” he said slowly, and with 
a characteristic, sly smile. 

“ That explains it all ! Mrs. Wells actually got 
up and began to pull Mr. Smith’s hair, none too 
thick at this period, as though she meant to pull it 
all out by the roots. 

“There!” she exclaimed, as she stopped after 
a round of pulls on such locks as she could catch. 
“ Why did you not tell me before that you were the 
Mr. Smith who loved Jack and made his fortune, 
and nursed him so like a mother to the last! You 
horrid man! ” 

She burst out sobbing for a few moments. Mr. 
Smith said nothing but, “Tut, tut! what a silly 
woman you are after all, Sallie.” 

Hearing the name by which Jack had always 
called her, she commenced immediately a fresh series 
of sobs, this time on Mr. Smith’s breast, who put his 
arm tenderly about her. However, she was too old 
a woman to permit herself to behave so sentimentally 
for very long, and besides, she heard a rustle of the 
bushes, and at once resumed her usual dignified 
appearance, though her eyes betrayed the emotion 
which filled her breast. The rustle was occasioned 
by a small party of sightseers who merely looked at 


116 3uet jfrienbs 

the city below for a few moments and then de- 
parted, laughing and chatting gaily. 

“ How quickly you righted yourself, Sallie! I 
think that must come of your well-proportioned 
waist, about the size of the Venus of Medici, I 
should think.” 

A merry, ringing laugh greeted this speech, fol- 
lowed by the query: 

“ Pray how many inches around is the waist of 
the famous Medici Venus? ” 

” Twenty-five, if my memory serves me rightly.” 

“ Thanks. I am glad to know, and pleased that 
in one respect I am like the Venus of Medici, prob- 
ably the most perfect statue in the world. But we 
must shy clear of the Medici for the short space of 
time that remains to us. Remember, we shall have 
to leave this beautiful garden by four o’clock; it 
is now two, and but two hours remain in which to 
arrive at a good understanding. Doubtless, how- 
ever, the time will be ample, because you must be 
well posted about me, having been such a good 
friend to my dear brother ; so it will be quite unnec- 
essary for me to enter into details about my own 
past.” 

“ I know all he could tell me and all your letters 
suggested, we used to read them together as they 
came, and I liked them so well that he gave them to 


3u$t Jfrienbs 117 

me, almost the last thing before he died. I have 
them safe and easy of access.” 

“ Please tell me when you guessed that I was 
Jack’s sister! It could not have been a great while 
ago, else you would have betrayed the knowledge 
sooner, I should say.” 

“ The first time I really looked at you, I said to 
myself, ‘ Where have I seen that face? ’ and I tried 
to think, to place you every time I saw you. Then 
somebody told me you were an American; and 
finally a man declared he had seen you in Salt Lake 
City. That was enough for me. I knew at once 
who you were. You are much like your brother 
Jack.” 

“ Naturally there would be a family resemblance. 
We have seen nothing of each other, however, since 
before my marriage with a Mormon Elder. Jack 
was of a restless, roving disposition and left home 
shortly before I did, going first to South America, and 
afterwards to Australia. Ah, how good you were to 
him — and to me ! I should never have been able to 
leave the States, I think, without his financial help, 
and it is due to the pretty little fortune he left me that 
I am in Europe now and in comfortable circum- 
stances. What do not Jack and my boy and my- 
self owe to your generosity and help? ” Mrs. 
Wells’ eyes filled with tears as she spoke. 


118 


3ust friend 

" Tut, tut, Sallie! It was a debit and credit sort 
of account which is still running. But tell me how it 
happened that you, Sallie, came to be part and 
parcel of the worst monopoly which has ever planted 
itself in a democratic country! I tried to figure it 
out long before I saw you — and now that I know 
you it is more of a puzzle than ever. You appear 
to have an unusual admiration for people who have 
a knack of seeing things as they are, and yet, Sallie, 
you did your part towards planting on sacred Ameri- 
can soil a monopoly calculated to destroy the hard- 
won liberty of American womanhood and manhood, 
and to swamp in the newest West the nearest ap- 
proach to a democracy the world has yet seen. 
Sallie, I must admit that you are a woman with a 
past — a very dangerous past! ” 

Mr. Smith looked so grave that Mrs. Wells was 
deceived for a moment into thinking that she might 
find it difficult to make him understand how blind 
and ignorant she had been when she came under the 
Mormon influence. Dreading to enter, even cursor- 
ily, on a experience which had caused her such long 
and bitter travail of spirit after a short period of 
ecstatic bliss, she rose quickly, saying: 

“ Let us walk about a few moments and get 
limbered up before I begin my tale of woe, which I 
mean to cut as short as possible.” 


3 uat 3fricnt)0 


119 


“ As short as you please, Sallie, after you have 
made it clear to me how you, a woman, born and 
bred in Democratic America, and one who makes it 
a creed, as you might say, to see things as they are 
and to practice a Common Sense Religion, which 
teaches that God evidently intended the sexes to be 
paired rather than grouped, since He sent about the 
same number of each that they might be helpmeets 
to one another and put in order this huge wilderness 
we call the Earth — how you could yet pass years in 
holding up the hands of a Monopoly which, left 
unchecked, would restore the worst sort of auto- 
cracy — the ‘ Thus Saith the Lord type.’ ” 

Mrs. Wells seemed somewhat perplexed by this 
somewhat abrupt question, and, perhaps to gain 
time in the evolution of her explanation, suggested 
that they again move on. 



Chapter Six 




Gbe granb people of Hmerica were not tbere, 
tbe clergg were not tbere ; but besibe tbe ne= 
groes stoob tbe ©uafeer pieacber anb tbe jfrencb 
Gatbolic woman, flbabame Bonneville placeb 
ber son Benjamin— afterwarbs General in tbe 
Tflniteb States Srmg— at one enb of tbe grave, 
anb stanbing berself at tbe otber enb, crieb, 
as tbe eartb fell on tbe coffin : “ ©b, flbr. Paine, 
mg son stanbs bere as testimony of tbe grati* 
tube of Hmerica, anb U for jfrance ! ” 

From, the Life of Thomas Paine by Moncure Daniel Conway. 


The will of Thomas Paine closes with these words : “ I die 
in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator , 
God." 


I 


CHAPTER SIX 

To do good is my religion. — T homas Paine. 


w 


|OU have put the case none too strongly,” 
Mrs. Wells admitted finally, as they slowly 
pursued their upward way toward the pretty 
observatory, “ and I wonder myself, as I glance 
backward, how it was that I could ever have been 
such a credulous simpleton as to believe, almost 
without question, so many preposterous things, and 
how I could have remained in bondage as a chattel 
for so long! ” 

She paused long enough to seat herself comfort- 
ably and admire the more extended view of Flor- 
ence and its environs than their previous station had 
afforded, and then continued: 

“You should recall the fact that I was very 
young, very ignorant, very emotional and conse- 
quently very easily impressed; just the soil for re- 
ligious ideas to take root and grow with exuberant 
vitality. Besides, a certain chain of circumstances 

t25 


126 


3u$t jfrtenbs 

had contributed to still further prepare my mind 
for the religious cataclysm which overtook it under 
the preaching — or exhorting, rather — of two Mor- 
mon Elders who came to our neighborhood to save 
those * willing to flee from the wrath to come.* 

“ Some months previously, my brother Jack had 
run away from home, which caused us all great 
grief and hastened the death of my mother who was 
in very delicate health at the time; and the loss of 
my favorite brother, followed so closely by the death 
of my dear mother, made the world seem as dread- 
ful as the Mormon Elders painted it. So when 
they urged all who would be saved to join the Lat- 
ter Day Saints and go to the new Zion, the Mil- 
lenium centre of the world, I, for one, was very 
eager to do so; so eager, indeed, that the remon- 
strance of the remaining members of my family only 
made me the more determined to leave all and flee 
to the appointed place of refuge. By following 
this course Elder Wells assured me that I might be 
the means of saving my whole family — when they 
were assured of my happiness in the land of Promise 
held in reserve by the hand of God for the resting- 
place of His saints. These were the chain of cir- 
cumstances I have referred to, and there was still 
another cause made me like clay in the hands of 
the potter. With the awakening of my spiritual 


127 


3u6t 3 frient >0 

nature, had come at the same time that other love 
which, of itself, is apt to bring some sort of a crisis 
with it.” 

“You don’t mean to tell me you really fell in love 
with a polygamous Mormon? ” Mr. Smith looked 
very much disgusted. 

“ Yes, I mean to tell you just that; for it is the 
truth. But I was not aware — when I hurriedly and 
secretly married him just before we all set off for Salt 
Lake, that he had other wives in various places.” 

Mr. Smith looked relieved, but said nothing. 

“ Still I am not sure that I would not have swal- 
lowed the polygamy part along with the rest, in such 
a strange state of exaltation was I with the two new 
loves born in my warm heart almost simultaneously. 
Someone has said that * a certain tendency to in- 
sanity has often attended the opening of the relig- 
ious sense in man,’ and calls attention to the trances 
of Socrates the * union ’ of Plotinus, the vision of 
Porphry, the conversion of Paul, the aurora of Beh- 
men and the convulsions of George Fox, to prove his 
point. It would be equally easy to quote a list of 
illustrious persons who have shown this same tend- 
ency to insanity when overtaken by love for a per- 
son of the opposite sex. Imagine then the state of 
my frail bark loaded with a double portion of dan- 
gerous emotion at one and the same time! ” 


128 


3ust filenfcs 

“ How long did this blissful state last, Sarah? ” 
asked Mr. Smith with a touch of cynicism in his 
voice. 

“ It lasted during our long journey to Zion, and 
for a short time afterward.” 

“ Until you learned of the half-dozen or so other 
Mrs. Wells,” interposed her companion, with an air 
of relief rather than of sympathy. 

“ Well, yes; until an Apostle visited me privately 
in the absence of my husband and assured me that 
I was no longer a babe in the divine fold, and that 
I was indeed strong enough to exchange a diet of 
milk for one of meat. As he put all he said in 
Biblical language his conversation impressed me very 
deeply; so that, when he explained the polygamy 
part of their religion and declared in no uncertain 
terms that each man among them meant to live his 
religion, cost what it might, I almost admired him. 
He proceeded then to tell me of the many cruel per- 
secutions which had been endured by the Latter 
Day Saints, and of the heroic band of martyrs which 
Mormonism had already produced, and finally an- 
nounced that he would accompany me in his convey- 
ance to the abode which was to be mine, and which 
had been made quite ready for my reception by its 
former occupant, the fifth wife of one husband. 
This * sister * had been called of the Lord to take up 


Suet 3frieni>0 


129 


her residence in another place, and Elder Wells had 
likewise been called at the same time to take up the 
work of the Lord in the same place ; but so suddenly 
had the summons come to him, and so great was the 
need of dispatch, that he had found it quite impos- 
sible to bid me an affectionate adieu before start- 

• 99 

mg. 

“ Did you not pull the Apostle’s hair for him at 
this point of his narrative, as you did for me awhile 
back? ” 

“ No, I did not. I was so bewildered I really 
behaved as a true wife is expected to do; that is, 
I was meekness itself, and acquiesced modestly, if 
rather faintly, to all the instructions tendered me by 
this member of the Twelve. When once alone in 
the bare little room which was to be my abode until 
a Mormon leader should otherwise direct, I pro- 
ceeded to fasten the door so no one could enter, and 
quietly sat down. It never once occurred to me to 
go to bed, though the hour was late, for the Apostle 
was a facile talker and given to many words ; neither 
did I offer up any kind of prayer the live-long night. 

“ As I was exceedingly strong and healthy at this 
time, the morning light found me but little the worse 
for the hours of internal stress and storm, though 
my limbs seemed just a trifle unsteady when I at- 
tempted to walk about for a change. The first 
9 


130 


3u6t jfrienbs 

thing I saw distinctly with the new light of morn- 
ing was a Bible open on the table. I glanced down 
at it, and seeing my own name on the page, picked 
up the book and began to read what Genesis had to 
say about Sarah, the wife of Abraham, a favorite 
character with the Mormons. My mother had oc- 
casionally read to us on Sunday some stories out 
of the Bible, and we had committed verses to memory 
occasionally; but in all my life I could not recall 
that anyone had told me it was God’s will that a 
man should have more than one wife. I began now 
to read the Bible with deep interest and close at- 
tention.” 

“ A dry business, Sarah,” interposed Mr. Smith, 
changing his position uneasily. 

“ Quite the contrary to one whose heart was in 
the condition of mine at that terrible time. In those 
days nearly all people regarded the Bible as Holy 
Writ, and it was common to appeal to Scripture to 
decide difficult questions. In my fearful loneliness 
and desperate state, I felt I must get a little relief 
from some source, and so my eyes were soon glued 
to the pages of the Book. Having finished the story 
of Sarah, in which I found little satisfaction, I turned 
to the first chapter of Genesis and read on into the 
second, where I found a more explicit account of 
the making of Adam and Eve.” 


3u$t Jfrienbs 


131 


“ Here was much food for reflection. Why, I 
wondered, had God formed Adam and Eve in such 
a different way! One first parent in one way, and 
the other in quite a different way; but the thing that 
puzzled me most was why, after the Creator had 
fashioned a man, if He had intended him to live 
polygamously. He had not taken several ribs out of 
Adam and formed for him a group of wives in the 
beginning. Then we could have been sure concern- 
ing His will in the matter.” 

“ I made up my mind to spring this question on 
our much-married husband, when he should put in 
an appearance; and feeling a little less depressed, I 
went to the cupboard, and finding a few edibles 
there I took a couple of eggs, broke the shells, cooked 
them a little, swallowed the contents, and quickly re- 
sumed my Bible reading. To cut my story as short 
as possible, for our time is nearly up, I will 
add that when I got the whole Bible read through 

I ” 

Mr. Smith cut off Mrs. Wells’ narrative to ask: 
“ And could you reconcile the polygamous practise 
of the patriarchs and men high in the favor of Jeho- 
vah with the sentiment of the New Testament evi- 
dently against marriage at all — or at best, merely 
tolerating it, as a necessary evil? ” 

“ No, I could not. In truth, I was wonderfully 


132 


3u$t Jriente 

puzzled to learn in the very first chapter of Mat- 
thew that Christ was born of a virgin and hence out 
of wedlock. Another big surprise awaited me when 
I came to the nineteenth chapter, verse twelve, where 
I got the impression that Christ considered that, to 
be made a eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven’s 
sake, was the highest type of life ” 

“ Undoubtedly he thought so, since he stood for 
self-abnegation — like a woman — in place of self-ex- 
pansion — like a Medici.” 

Mrs. Wells greeted this speech with one of her 
ringing laughs. “ Truly you have Medici on the 
brain,” she said. 

“ And why? ” he queried. Then he answered 
his own question: “Because those old Citizen 
Medici actually did for Florence what I aimed to do 
for my city, but failed and became a homeless wan- 
derer on the face of the earth, made so by venomous, 
religious tongues.” 

“ Ah, well, never mind,” said his companion 
soothingly. “ I think God often takes the wish 
for the deed and I am sure He sees that in your 
heart you aimed to be a practical, energetic, un- 
selfish citizen. It is Emerson who said that * our 
age and history for these thousand years has not been 
the history of kindness but selfishness.’ The people 
naturally doubted your wish to serve them more 


3ust jfrienbe 133 

particularly, as you were not what they were pleased 
to call a Christian.” 

“ Ah — well, well,” absently repeated Mr. Smith 
sadly, as he roused himself to ask : “ And what sort 
of a little marital speech did you prepare for that 
much-married husband of yours? But, perhaps, he 
never came back? ” 

“ Oh, yes, he came back all right — or all wrong 
— it is not easy to say which. And I charged my 
mind with the accounts of all the unhappy polygam- 
ous marriages — and they were all unhappy — and 
the disastrous consequences to the Jewish nation 
which followed in the wake of Solomon, the Prince 
of Polygamists. Naturally, there was a little re- 
straint when our husband came to see me in the 
abode he had prepared for my reception. 

“ I cannot repeat all the Elder said, but he finally 
produced a copy of ‘ Celestial Marriages,’ a revela- 
tion on the Patriarchical Order of Marriage or Plur- 
ality of Wives, as given to Joseph Smith the Prophet 
and Seer of these latter days. I will repeat a small 
portion of it, just to give you an idea of how like 
Holy Writ it sounded, and how easily convinced 
was I, a credulous ignoramus of fourteen, that God 
had indeed communicated His will to man con- 
cerning these latter days through the new Ameri- 
can Prophet, Joseph Smith. The first verse only 


134 


3uet 3frieni>$ 

will I repeat, since the rest are but variations of the 
same central theme: 

“ * Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my serv- 
ant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of 
my hand, to know and understand wherein I, the 
Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my serv- 
ants, as touching the principles and doctrine of their 
having many wives and concubines: Behold! and 
lo! I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee 
as touching this matter. Therefore prepare thy 
heart to receive and obey instructions which I am 
about to give you; for all those who have this law 
revealed unto them must obey the same; for, be- 
hold ! I reveal unto you a new and everlasting cove- 
nant, and if ye obey not that covenant, then are ye 
damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be 
permitted to enter into my glory; for all who will 
have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law 
which was appointed for that blessing, and the con- 
ditions thereof, as instituted from the foundations of 
the world ; and as pertaining to the new and everlast- 
ing covenant; it was instituted for the fulness of my 
glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must 
and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith 
the Lord God.’ ” 

“ The preposterous religious nerve of this Latter 


3ust Jfriente 135 

Day Prophet ought to furnish material for a thousand 
farces! ” said Mr. Smith, laughing heartily. 

“I am not sure,” responded Mrs. Wells, “ but 
that the credulity of a multitude of fools like myself, 
who easily parted with a hard-won birthright leading 
toward the glorious American Temple of Liberty, 
only to turn back into a nasty House of Bondage 
and become the silly dupes of an autocratic priest- 
hood simply because the star performer, Joseph 
Smith, was a past-master in the art of imitating the 
phraseology of the Scriptures, should afford material 
for ten thousand farces. But, alas ! So long as many 
of us bear such deep and painful scars, we shall 
not be able to consider the Mormon religious drama 
as in the least amusing, even in retrospect. Fully be- 
lieving I should be eternally damned if I did not 
obey the polygamous law and all the rest, now that 
they had been revealed to me, I patiently took 
up what I thought was my cross and bore it as 
best I could until our husband was removed by 
death.” 

“ And what did you do next? ” asked Mr. 
Smith. 

“ Well, many things had contributed to open my 
eyes before this event took place. I was prepared 
when it did occur, to part forever from the Mormon 
priesthood, and go with my son to some excellent 


136 


3u6t tfrien&s 

educational centre and learn whether or not it was 
too late to Americanize him. Naturally, it was with 
some eagerness I left a place where I had suffered 
much sadness and deep loneliness, varied occasion- 
ally during the first years with periods of torturing 
jealousy, when our much-married husband took a 
new and fresh wife, and made what we old wives 
thought an unnecessary and too public display of 
exuberant love for her.” 

“ It is a wonder you did not marry again, Sallie. 
Y ou must have been regarded as quite a matrimonial 
prize,” said Mr. Smith uneasily, for jealousy was be- 
ginning to grip him hard. 

“ Most assuredly, after you had helped brother 
Jack to a fortune and that fortune had been duly 
transferred to me,” Mrs. Wells laughed gaily as she 
finished speaking. She felt herself growing young 
again, for the great Spirit of Love had poured into 
her sad, lonely heart a new and very sweet draught 
of life’s divinest elixir. 

“Then why did you not wed some lad?” he 
asked. “ Such unions appear to be coming into fash- 
ion, judging by the increasing frequency with which 
old women lead immature youths to the marriage 
altar.” 

Mr. Smith paled perceptibly as he awaited his 
companion’s reply; for who knew after all, whether 


3uet ffnenbs 


137 


it might not be an unquenchable interest in some 
man, half his own age, that was tugging away at 
Mrs. Wells’ heart-strings and impelling her to return 
to America. He therefore awaited her answer with 
keenest anticipation. 



Chapter Seven 




Jtieribsbip 

f sat tbinhing last night of frienbsbip, 

Hbat quality so rare in man, 

Hbat worb oft useb, more often abuses 

By manhinb tbrougb our whole life’s span. 
U breameb of an ibeal frienbsbip, 

©f life growing sweet anb calm, 

Mbere a man serves frienbs, not selfisb enbs, 
anb tbe lamp anb H smoheb on. 

H pictures my frienb as ITS bave bim, 
for wbom H woulb lay Sown my life, 
a steabfast frienb, on wbom to bepenb 
fib rough life’s battle of storm anb strife. 
Hbe frienbsbip of which 11 was breaming 
Ho one so selborn e’er comes ; 

’His a greater rarity tban Christian cbarity, 

So tbe lamp anb H smoheb on. 

Stamp anb pipe, sball we stop our smohing, 
Hnb give up tbe search in bespair, 

©r still Iooh tbrougb tbe leaves of life’s boob 
Hill we finb such a frienb somewhere ? 
Sball we ever tins one H wonber ? 

a frienb so sturby anb strong? 
jges, we will some bay, II ween ; if not, we can 
bream, 

So tbe lamp anb f smoheb on. 


Anonymous. 













CHAPTER SEVEN 


America, in an inspired moment, and with rare common-sense, 
embodied her religion in four words, In God We Trust. 

“ VfTj HY did I not marry when I had the op- 
portunity to be led to the altar by a 
noble young man — who had saved my 
idolized boy from drowning? ” Mrs. Wells queried 
dreamily. 

“ Heaven! Tell me about it! ” 

Mr. Smith’s frenzied manner waked Mrs. Wells 
to his true condition. She said sympathetically, 
placing her hand for a moment confidingly in his: 

“ Do not worry : I was not in the least tempted to 
rob a fine specimen of American manhood of the 
privilege of giving to the New World some fine citi- 
zens and to himself the expansion of soul which 
comes with the rearing of them, and I told him so 
frankly.” 

“ What did he say? How did he take your re- 
fusal? ” Mr. Smith spoke as though a great fear had 
taken possession of him. His hands were visibly 
shaking as he began to tear a piece of paper into 
small bits. 


143 


144 


3u0t jTiente 

“ What did he say? ” repeated Mrs. Wells with 
a faraway look in her soulful eyes. “ Oh, every- 
thing! — and in most eloquent, soul-stirring words. 
He had Irish blood in his veins, and I became so 
apprehensive that in a weak moment I might yield 
to his seductive arguments, couched in words which 
burn and with looks which transport, that finally, 
when my common sense whispered ‘ run away * I 
heeded its small voice and came to Europe.” 

“ I suppose my love-making must strike you as a 
very tame affair after the transports experienced with 
that fellow.” Mr. Smith looked so unutterably mis- 
erable, so meanly jealous as he said “ that fellow ” 
that Mrs. Wells could not help laughing — a merry, 
girlish, ringing laugh. However, not wishing to 
give him more pain, she said quickly: 

“ But why make love to me? Haven’t we been 
having the time of our lives without any love-mak- 
ing? ” 

" True — true. Yet how be sure of a continuance 
of our sweet, sane, restful — aye, heavenly — friend- 
ship unless I make love to you? Unless we marry. 
I was thunderstruck when that little old maid with 
the prematurely white hair and pink cheeks and 
really seductive manners, informed me that you were 
returning home to wed — according to Dame Ru- 


mor. 


145 


3uet ffrienbs 

It was now Mrs. Wells’ turn to feel some twinges 
of jealousy concerning a very chic “ bachelor wo- 
man ” — as she called herself — who, Mrs. Wells was 
aware, had, for some time, been doing her level best 
to land “ the rich widower from Australia.” 

“ And I, on my part,” admitted Mrs. Wells, 
“ was thunderstruck when she informed me in a se- 
ductive way, and with very pink cheeks, that the 
* rich widower from Australia ’ had proposed so ir- 
resistibly and ardently that she had capitulated and 
would in no long time permit him to lead her to the 
altar.” 

“ The lying devil! ” was all Mr. Smith could say 
by way of reply, as he got up and strode about for 
a change. A little more calm, he seated himself 
again and Mrs. Wells continued: 

“ I suppose she counted on being able to capture 
you when I was at a safe distance and you had be- 
come a little lonely ; she knew we were good friends, 
though not lovers.” 

“ How did she know we were not lovers? For 
sometimes we have sat as close to each other as we 
dared in a public reading-room, and we have never 
lost an opportunity to shake hands, smile understand- 
ing^, and walk a bit together when opportunity 
offered.” 

” Oh, I told her we were not. You know she 

10 


146 


3uet jfriente 

is very inquisitive and lakes a large interest in other 
people’s affairs — especially their love affairs. I would 
not feel hard toward her if I were you, because I 
hear she has about reached the end of her financial 
resources and it stands her in hand to look about for 
new means of support. In love, as in war, people 
are not expected to be squeamish in the use of means 
calculated to effect a conquest.” 

“ That is the great reason why there are so many 
unhappy marriages,” affirmed Mr. Smith shaking his 
head. “ The deceit practised before marriage is dis- 
covered afterward and confidence wrecked. But 
what am I to do now, since you don’t seem to wish 
me to make love to you? ” Mr. Smith gazed at his 
companion with a countenance full of bewilderment. 

" Do? Why, nothing! Are we not having the 
time of our lives? ” Mrs. Wells’ expression, so often 
repeated of late, bespoke complete confidence — a 
thoroughly good understanding. 

“ Am I to understand that you really don’t wish 
me to make love to you and that you do not care 
to marry again? ” 

“ Precisely. We would be fools to risk our pres- 
ent felicity for a relation which no one can foresee, 
or foretell the results thereof. A certain writer has 
declared that marriage often changes the dispositions 
of men and women, just as the combining of 


3u$t 3fnent>$ 


147 


two chemicals utterly changes the nature of two 
ingredients. That is true — and what is more 
sad than to see two old people unhappily 
wedded? ” 

Mr. Smith blurted out, “ But I thought women 
had no use for friendship; that it must be an emo- 
tional sort of love with them or nothing.” 

After a moment’s pause, Mrs. Wells re- 
plied : 

“ In spite of Christ’s example, society has not en- 
couraged sympathic friendly relations between the 
sexes, unless married to one another. When it does 
we shall not have so many sad-eyed, prematurely- 
aged people as we find to-day. Ah, if people only 
knew what we know — that to be ‘ just friends ’ is 
the divinest thing on earth! ” 

Mr. Smith, being still a little dazed, inquired 
tentatively: “ Am I to understand that you will give 
up your projected trip to America, that you will 
remain here, and that we are to go on reading the 
papers every morning at the dear old Vieusseux 
reading-rooms, and shaking hands — like lovers — 
whenever Uncle Sam does something to startle the 
Old World, until it does not know where it is at? 
Truly? ” 

“Truly,” repeated Mrs. Wells, imitating Mr. 
Smith’s gesture.” 


148 


3u6t 3 frieni >0 

“ And eveiy once in a while, when we get * chuck 
full * of ideas that must have an airing, we will in- 
dulge in a walking and talking spree such as we have 
just been enjoying? ” 

“ We will! ” asserted Mrs. Wells with amusing, 
mock-solemn acquiescence. 

“ And you will let me rage to the limit against 
the mad fanatic who did his best to destroy the in- 
fluence and undo the works of the greatest citizen of 
fair Florence? ” 

“ I will. But on the other hand, you must let me 
set you right in an all-round way in respect to Amer- 
ica’s greatest citizen and saviour — Thomas Paine. 
Why, until you knew me you believed he was * a 
filthy little atheist.’ Strange you did not make the 
effort to discover the real facts about his private life 
and religious beliefs when you were perfectly aware 
of his great public services to humanity! There 
ought to be established a great international 
society ” 

“ What! another society? What for, pi ay? ” 

“For the prevention of cruelty to ’* 

“ Good Heavens ! Are you not aware that there 
are hosts of societies and gifted people working for 
the prevention of cruelty to animals, and for their 
protection? ’’ 

“ Exactly! But where is the society, or group of 


149 


Juet jfrienbs 

gifted, well-posted people, who make it a business 
to prevent undue cruelty to the memory of our real 
saviours and heroes? ” 

“ Of course it is not always possible to protect 
the saviour of a people — like Lincoln for instance — 
from being shot down like a dog; but such a society 
might make it its business to run down malicious lies 
and misleading statements about heroes and saviours 
whom the people desire to respect and esteem as well 
as to admire.” 

“ Why could not we set such a movement going. 
We both have money and leisure and we are spend- 
ing our time in trying to find out the truth about 
things and about people who have rendered human- 
ity great services.” Mrs. Wells spoke timidly — a 
little beseechingly and pathetically, having long been 
suppressed by Mormon leaders. 

“ There’s nothing to hinder,” asserted Mr. Smith 
with his old animation. “ When we indulge in our 
next walking and talking bout we will discuss that 
matter; and in the meantime, we will do a lot of 
hard thinking and quiet brooding. However, let us 
settle our own business first. What if I should have 
another stroke that would make it impossible for me 
to go to our present rendezvous — Vieusseux’s li- 
brary? ” 

“ I will bring the papers you love to your bedside 


150 3u0t 3 frient >0 

and read them to you,” promptly responded Mrs. 
Wells. 

‘‘And if at the last. Death should tarry in his 
coming ” 

“ I will tarry at your bedside — become your nurse 
— and do all I can to stave Death off — outwit him.” 

Devoutly and without warning, Mr. Smith raised 
his eyes heavenward. 

“ Infinite spirit, I thank Thee that Thou hast led 
us to see the wondrous beauty in being ‘ just 
friends/ ” he said earnestly, and lapsed into silence. 

They sat for some time, hand in hand, until the 
lengthening shadows reminded them it was time to 
return whence they had come : and still hand in hand, 
they left the spot where each felt a new joy had 
come bearing a crown, not of thorns, but of roses. 


Ubc JEnfc* 







































JUN 2 1908 























* 








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